A Critical Reading of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence

Introduction

In his work, David Benatar systematically defends the claim that birth itself constitutes a profound harm. While he acknowledges that his conclusion is “deeply counterintuitive,” he argues through the “asymmetry” argument—which holds that suffering takes precedence over pleasure when evaluating pain and pleasure according to “intuitiveness”—that this is the only rationally defensible moral conclusion.

I believe that skepticism regarding birth can exist as a legitimate philosophical position. However, Benatar’s argument is not a moral or logical necessity, but merely a selective combination of particular intuitions that place excessive weight on “harm.” Through the lens Benatar employs, life may appear tragic; yet through the lens of “value realization” or “human standards,” life remains worth continuing. Furthermore, I contend that this philosophical discourse should lead us not toward a “prohibition on procreation,” but rather toward a “conditional procreative ethics” that must be borne jointly by individuals and society.

1. Analysis of the Asymmetry Argument

Benatar’s asymmetry argument schematizes the value assessment between existence and non-existence as follows:

Scenario	Existence	Non-existence
Pain	(1) Bad	(3) Good
Pleasure	(2) Good	(4) Not Bad

The crux of this argument lies in the asymmetry between (3) and (4). Benatar justifies this asymmetry through the concept of deprivation.

(3) Absence of pain: This is “good” in comparison to the pain that would have been experienced had the person existed. This is a relative value based on the interests of that person in Scenario A (existence).
(4) Absence of pleasure: This is “not bad” because there is no subject to be deprived of the pleasure (“The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation”).

Benatar justifies this asymmetry not merely by appealing to intuition, but through its capacity to provide a unified explanation of four derivative asymmetries:

Asymmetry of procreative duties: There is a duty not to bring a suffering child into existence, but no duty to bring a happy child into existence.
Asymmetry of prospective beneficence: It is strange to have a child in order to create a happy person, but natural not to have a child who would be miserable.
Asymmetry of retrospective beneficence: One can say to someone who exists, “It’s fortunate that you were born,” but one cannot say to someone who does not exist, “It’s unfortunate that you were not born.”
Asymmetry between distant suffering and absent happiness: We regret suffering in distant places, but we do not regret the absence of happy beings on Mars.

Examination of the Deprivation Theory Underlying the Asymmetry

The asymmetry invoked by Benatar’s concept of “deprivation” becomes a significant point of contention for the following reasons.

First, why is “deprivation” the only morally relevant concept? Benatar distinguishes between “benefit withheld” and “benefit deprived,” claiming that the former is morally neutral. However, this distinction itself is contentious. If we can easily provide a benefit but choose not to, is this truly morally neutral? The fact that the absence of a benefit does not induce a sense of deprivation does not morally nullify the loss of that value.

Second, Benatar’s logic holds that “for something to be good or bad, it must be good or bad for someone.” If Benatar applies this principle strictly, then since there is no “someone” in the state of non-existence, both (3) the absence of pain and (4) the absence of pleasure should be incapable of value assessment.

Even if he adopts a looser perspective that includes “potential people,” just as in (3) it is a benefit to have avoided “the pain that would have been experienced had one been born,” in (4) it should be a loss to have missed “the pleasure that would have been enjoyed had one been born.” However, Benatar permits the counterfactual assumption “if one had existed” for pain, thereby securing the interests of potential subjects, while blocking this assumption for pleasure by claiming “there is no subject to be deprived.” This constitutes a clear double standard. Granting “an interest in avoiding pain” to non-existent beings while denying them “an interest in enjoying pleasure” is logically difficult to comprehend. If interests necessarily presuppose the existence of a subject, then both (3) and (4) should be neutral; if they do not, then both should be subject to evaluation. Benatar, however, merely states that this inconsistency regarding potential existence is “obvious” or “uncontroversial.”

Third, even if one concedes the “logical inconsistency” of Benatar’s asymmetric “deprivation” assumption, questions remain regarding “moral intuition.” He stated that the absence of pleasure is not bad because “there is no one to regret that absence.” However, something need not be recognized or lamented by someone for it to constitute a loss. We judge that someone who loses property or is deprived of opportunities while unconscious has suffered a “real loss,” even if they feel no distress. Similarly, even if the absence of pleasure causes no psychological suffering (sense of deprivation) to non-existent beings, it should be viewed as an objective loss (loss of opportunity cost) in that intrinsic value that could have been realized has been forfeited. If the absence of pain is good as a “benefit without a beneficiary,” then the absence of pleasure should be bad (or less good) as a “loss without a victim”—this is intuitively consistent.

Fourth, Let me now explicitly consider the person-affecting view that Benatar adopts. When we factor in the opportunity costs to parents, we can connect this to our third point: the non-birth of a child is not merely a “loss without a victim,” but rather a loss of opportunity costs for actual, existing victims—namely, the parents. In other words, if the child’s non-existence eliminates the happiness and utility that the parents could have enjoyed, this constitutes a clear economic and psychological loss.

Benatar would likely counter this argument as follows: “Having a child to prevent the parents’ opportunity costs (the loss of their pleasure) is unethical because it reduces the child to a mere means for the parents’ happiness.” The logic here is that we should not cast an innocent being (the child) into a life containing the possibility of suffering simply to serve another’s (the parents’) pleasure.

However, this rebuttal is valid only if we presuppose an extreme pessimism—the view that life is better left unlived. The situation changes fundamentally if, upon comprehensively evaluating both the suffering and the value inherent in life, we judge that life is sufficiently worth living. In such a case, procreation is not a matter of instrumentalizing the child for parental pleasure. Rather, it becomes an act of mutual benefit: it grants the child the opportunity to experience a positive life.

Can we really condemn as “mere instrumentalization serving one’s own desires” the parental impulse to bring a child into this world so that the child might experience a good life and a beautiful world? To foreclose the possibility that life can be a gift, while absolutizing only the avoidance of suffering, lacks persuasive power.

That said, this line of reasoning does amount to negating Benatar’s conclusion—antinatalism following from his asymmetry—and taking it as a premise. Since we are essentially denying his conclusion to argue against his premise, we must proceed more carefully. In the later sections of this essay—particularly “The Reverse Asymmetry Argument” and “Whose Intuitions Take Priority?”—I will directly refute the claim that the asymmetry is correct. Only as a result of establishing that the asymmetry fails will I demonstrate that “life can indeed be positive.”

Fifth, the “four derivative asymmetries” that Benatar presents to support his theory can be sufficiently explained through the more rigorous intuition of “Concretized Possibility under Causal Control,” without borrowing his distinctive axiology.

(a) Let us examine the “asymmetry of procreative duties.” The moment procreation is deliberated, the potential child ceases to be a mere abstract concept and becomes a “concretized possibility under the causal control” of the parents (the moral agents). Consequently, both the potential suffering and happiness of that child fall within the scope of the agents’ responsibility. In the case of “a child who will suffer,” the universal ethical imperative to “prevent harm within one’s control” creates a duty not to procreate. Conversely, in the case of “a child who will be happy,” while that happiness possesses moral value, the duty to promote benefit is generally weaker than the duty to prevent harm (non-maleficence > beneficence). Therefore, the absence of a duty to procreate arises not because the absence of pleasure is “not bad,” but because of the hierarchy of duties applicable to possibilities within our control.

(b) The “asymmetry of procreative beneficence”—the intuition that creating people to make them happy feels awkward, whereas not creating beings who would suffer feels natural—can be fully explained without assuming an independent axiological asymmetry. As Benatar acknowledges, beneficence is inherently an act performed “for someone,” which conceptually presupposes the existence of a beneficiary. Conversely, also following Benatar’s logic, the prevention of harm operates through a structure that blocks potential damage; this structure remains logically complete even if the subject does not actually exist.

Furthermore, the intuitive difference in the “concreteness of possibility” supports this view. Creating a person to make them happy remains in the realm of “vague possibility” without substance. In contrast, refraining from creating a being who would suffer is perceived as addressing a “concrete risk” that can be blocked by a present action. Due to this epistemic distinction, the previously mentioned “strong duty to prevent harm” naturally shapes an asymmetrical intuition within the domain of procreation as well.

Crucially, there is no reason to interpret these differences in conceptual grammar and epistemic concreteness as mere “surface reflections” of a deeper axiological asymmetry. If Benatar asks, “Why do the concepts of beneficence and prevention possess such existential conditions?” and argues that an axiological asymmetry lies behind them, he must establish his axiology independently of these conceptual structures. However, insofar as his axiology itself is formulated by relying on the logical relationships between “pleasure,” “pain,” and “absence,” it either falls into circular reasoning or, at the very least, fails to demonstrate explanatory priority. Rather, the difference in the existential conditions of beneficence and prevention is a constitutive feature inherent in how these concepts are actually used and applied. It functions as an explanatory endpoint that requires no further axiological explanation. This is because it is not a mere linguistic convention, but the logical grammar of the action types known as beneficence and prevention.

Therefore, this asymmetry arises not because “the absence of pleasure is morally neutral,” but from the difference in the existential conditions inherent in the very concepts of beneficence and prevention. Since this explanation already possesses sufficient explanatory power, the axiological asymmetry that Benatar attempts to introduce remains an unnecessarily redundant hypothesis rather than one that deepens the explanation.

(c) The “asymmetry of retrospective beneficence” (one can say “fortunate to have been born,” but not “unfortunate not to have been born”) is an issue of counterfactual accessibility. An existing agent implies a realized possibility; thus, they can look back at the counterfactual of non-existence and evaluate it (“It is fortunate I exist”). However, for a non-existent being, there is no subject to anchor the evaluation. More importantly, a “non-existent person” is not a possibility under anyone’s current causal control—it is a null set. Therefore, the statement “unfortunate not to have been born” is impossible not because pleasure is absent, but because the subject required to anchor the counterfactual comparison is logically and causally absent.

(d) Regarding the “asymmetry between distant suffering and absent happiness” (we regret suffering in distant places, but not the absence of happy Martians). The reason we do not regret the absence of happy Martians is that they are merely a “logical possibility,” not a “concretized possibility under our causal control.” We have no causal power to bring them into existence; thus, their absence carries no moral weight for us. In stark contrast, the child in a procreation decision is a possibility dependent entirely on the agent’s choice (causal control). Unlike Martians, the potential child is within the sphere of our moral agency. Benatar commits a category error by treating “Martians” (a mere logical possibility outside our agency) and “a potential child” (a concretized possibility within our agency) as equivalent objects of comparison.

In summary, Benatar attempted to assert his view’s dominance by claiming his intuition best explains these phenomena. However, as demonstrated above, the alternative framework focusing on ‘Causal Control’ and ‘Concretized Possibility’ provides a far more consistent and rational explanation.

Sixth, even if Benatar’s distinction is justified and his logic and moral intuitions are internally consistent, this is merely the result of employing intuitions weighted toward “harm/damage.” As demonstrated above, intuitive systems that emphasize “value creation/possibility” still receive greater support, and other alternative intuitive systems may well exist. Ultimately, Benatar’s argument merely reveals the tendencies of his chosen combination of intuitions (intuitive/value system); it does not prove a logical and unique moral conclusion.

However, the conclusion emerging from Benatar’s combination of intuitions holds that because the absence of pleasure is not bad, even a life guaranteed immense happiness would be better not begun if even the slightest pain exists (such as a single pinprick in an entire lifetime). This is because in the state of non-existence, there is no pain from the pinprick (Good), and the absence of happiness is not bad (Not Bad), so existence’s scales always tip toward the negative (−). However, it accords with universal human reason that exchanging a lifetime of happiness for a single moment of discomfort is irrational. This thought experiment reveals that Benatar’s asymmetry premise is excessively mechanical and extreme for explaining value judgments in the real world. This is precisely where his intuitive system loses its persuasive force. I will address this in greater detail in the section “Whose Intuitions Take Priority?” below.

2. The Reverse-Asymmetry Argument

To demonstrate that Benatar’s concept of asymmetry is an edited and misread version of intuition (or at minimum, to show that he places great weight on intuitions that prioritize harm), I will use the same structure to derive a diametrically opposite conclusion.

Benatar selected the evaluative axis of “pain/pleasure” and appealed to the intuition that “the absence of deprivation is not bad.” However, we can reconstruct the table using another intuition: “The realization of value is good, and the absence of value is a loss (bad).” To this end, I have constructed value and cost as paired sides of the same coin.

Scenario	Existence	Non-existence
Value (Pleasure/Meaning)	(1) Good	(3) Bad
Cost (Pain/Risk)	(2) Bad but compensable	(4) Not Good or Neutral

The crux of this reverse-asymmetry argument likewise lies in (3) and (4).

First, the absence of value is “bad.” Benatar claims that “since there is no subject in non-existence to regret being deprived of pleasure, it is not bad.” However, imagine an empty universe—no one suffers, but there is no love, no art, no thought: only darkness. We intuitively feel this to be a “tragedy” or “waste.” Value requires a perceiving subject to be established. Non-existence signifies “the eternal extinction of value,” and the state (3) in which infinite value (pleasure, meaning, relationships, creation) that could have been generated had one existed is blocked constitutes a loss (Bad) in itself.

This remains the same even when applying Benatar’s concept of “deprivation.” Applying his argument, it is bad because the countless values the subject could have possessed had they existed have been “deprived.” (Since Benatar applies the concept of “deprivation” only to “pain,” I will likewise apply the concept of “deprivation” only to “value.”)

Second, the absence of cost (pain) is “not good.” Benatar deemed the absence of pain “good.” However, how can a benefit without a beneficiary be established? For the fact “there is no pain” to become “good,” there must be a subject to enjoy that comfort. We do not say an empty room is “happy” because it is quiet. It is merely nothing (Neutral). How can something be a moral good when there is no one to receive the benefit? Therefore, (4) is Not Good or Neutral.

Third, the cost (pain) of existence is “bad but compensable.” Benatar defines pain as an absolute evil, but our intuitions differ. Just as athletes endure pain to build muscle, life’s pain is an “investment cost” for creating pleasure and meaning. Just as we do not call the act of paying a cost to obtain something valuable a “loss,” certain kinds of pain paid for greater value cease to be pure evil. Therefore, the existence of cost (pain) is bad but compensable.

Synthesizing this reverse-asymmetry table yields the following conclusion:

Existence: Good (realization of value, ++) + Bad but compensable (compensable pain, − to 0) = Net benefit (+)
Non-existence: Bad (extinction of value, −) + Not Good or Neutral (meaninglessness, 0) = Net loss (−)

Therefore, contrary to Benatar’s conclusion that “it is better never to have been,” we arrive at the conclusion that “it is always better to be born.” Furthermore, pushing this logic to its extreme, we would bear a moral duty to procreate as many lives as possible in order to increase the total amount of value in the universe.

Of course, I am not claiming that this “unconditional natalism” is logically impeccable or even correct. This is a conclusion as extreme and counterintuitive as Benatar’s anti-natalism. However, what this thought experiment demonstrates is clear.

Benatar weighted only the passive intuition of “avoidance of suffering,” while the above argument weighted the active intuition of “realization of value.” There is no objective way to prove which intuition is superior. Philosophy that relies on intuition reverses its conclusions depending on which intuitions are selected.

Therefore, Benatar’s attempt at argumentation through asymmetry is not a logical necessity, but merely the product of arbitrarily setting the evaluative axis and reference point to achieve his desired conclusion. Benatar established non-existence as a “safe zone,” while I established non-existence as a “barren wasteland.” Thus, merely changing the settings reverses the conclusion. Since the opposite conclusion has been derived using the same methodology he employed, Benatar’s anti-natalism is shown to be not the logical consequence of the asymmetry argument, but rather the product of his selected combination of particular intuitions.

3. The Inconsistency Between “Worth Starting” and “Worth Continuing”

The most vulnerable point in Benatar’s argument is that he applies different standards to life’s “worth starting” and “worth continuing.”

Worth continuing: Once one has come into existence, death itself is a harm (deprivation), so it may be rational to continue life. (Lenient)
Worth starting: If one does not yet exist, there is no need to experience the harm of death, so even the slightest pain negates the worth of starting. (Strict)

Benatar states: “Existing people have an interest in their existence. This interest, once fully developed, is typically very strong and thus trumps the interest in not being harmed when they conflict.” This distinction appears plausible at first glance, but in fact, it is merely an arbitrary standard.

First, suppose there is a single life with identical total amounts of pain and pleasure. If this life is evaluated as “not worth starting” before birth, then converted to “worth continuing” immediately after birth, the moral evaluation varies according to the observer’s perspective rather than the essence of the object (life). Why is the “weight of harm,” which was so strict at the point of starting, treated leniently at the point of continuing?

Second, if Benatar acknowledges an ‘interest in continuing’ (future positive experiences that would be deprived by death), why is the ‘interest in starting’ (future positive experiences that would be gained by coming into existence) not given equal consideration? If prospective goods constitute a sufficient reason to continue a life, logical consistency dictates that they must be reflected equally in the reasons to start a life. It is arbitrary to assign different values to the same positive experiences based solely on the temporal perspective of the evaluation.

Third, Benatar commits the inconsistency of conveniently switching the source of greater harm depending on the situation. According to his logic, “life” is a state filled with suffering. Logically, the termination of that state (death) should be liberation. However, Benatar simultaneously argues that death is such a great harm that it is better to continue life.

If death is a harm so massive that it makes enduring life’s suffering worthwhile, is the source of the true tragedy humans experience in “life” or in “death”? The moment Benatar defines death as such a tremendous harm, paradoxically, he admits that life possesses positive value (too precious to lose through death).

Conversely, if life is truly extremely bad, is it rational to continue “overwhelming harm” (life) in order to avoid “additional/marginal harm” (death)? This reduces to a question of judging the magnitude of risks.

Of course, Benatar could say, “Life is bad and death is bad. This is precisely the tragedy of existence, and why it is best never to have been born in the first place.” However, this does not explain why the harm of death is treated as greater than the harm of life. The asymmetry whereby the harm of life is overwhelmingly emphasized at the point of starting, while the harm of death is overwhelmingly emphasized at the point of continuing, appears inconsistent.

Fourth, Benatar claims that for life to be worth starting, pleasure must be “significantly” greater than pain, and asserts that human life can never meet this standard. However, “no life meets this standard” is not a philosophical argument but appears closer to Benatar’s personal extreme pessimism. If a life sufficiently good to offset suffering and leave surplus is possible (and many feel it is), Benatar’s logic becomes grounds supporting not anti-natalism but “conditional birth for a sufficiently good life.” Of course, Benatar would dismiss people’s feeling of happiness as “biological bias.” I will address this claim in the section “Reexamining the Pollyanna Principle.”

4. Whose Intuitions Take Priority?

Benatar does not attempt to defend this asymmetry logically. From the outset, he shifts to the domain of moral intuition (that avoiding suffering takes priority over promoting pleasure) and attempts his defense there. In particular, he claims that his asymmetry is justified by its capacity to explain the four derivative asymmetries. This is an “inference to the best explanation” strategy. However, the problem lies in which intuitions are selected as objects of explanation.

The four asymmetries Benatar selected all prioritize suffering avoidance. However, humanity possesses other powerful intuitions that conflict with these. The following intuitions are still widely accepted among people:

“Nevertheless, life is worth living.”
“Meaning can be found through suffering.”
“It is better to exist than not to exist.”

Benatar dismisses these macro-level intuitions as psychological biases (optimism bias, adaptation mechanisms, etc.). However, this logic can be returned to him in precisely the same manner. If the public’s affirmation of life is a “biological bias,” what prevents Benatar’s negation of life from being defined as a “psychological bias” that focuses excessively on suffering?

The essence of “moral intuition” is not absolute law but a kind of heuristic that operates according to circumstances. Therefore, within intuition, there inevitably exist contradictory points. The micro-level intuition that “pain from a pinprick is bad” and the macro-level intuition that “nevertheless, life is worth living” appear to conflict, yet we navigate between them, maintaining balance. However, Benatar absolutizes certain intuitions of “suffering avoidance” that suit his purposes with his own reasons, while discarding the majority of intuitions (affirmation of life) that conflict with them.

Presupposing that only one among potentially internally contradictory intuitions is correct and proceeding with logic is not “using” moral intuition but comes closer to “misusing” intuition by editing it for convenience. For Benatar to prove his claim without error, he should either have avoided relying on the tool of intuition altogether, or brought a larger metaphysical system capable of encompassing humanity’s macro-level intuitions.

I further believe this constitutes a reductionist error of disparaging macro-level values through micro-level intuitions. Benatar fragments life into pieces of pain and pleasure, then gathers the pieces of pain and claims, “Look, life is bad.” This is like decomposing beautiful music (life) into individual sound waves (fragments of pain and pleasure), then claiming that the entire music is noise (life is suffering) because the dissonances (pain) are too unpleasant to hear. Thus, he argues that live performance (birth), which inevitably involves minor mistakes (suffering), must be prohibited. He contends that unless it is like MIDI music—error-free (an inhuman state without suffering)—one should not be born. However, people would likely not easily agree with such a claim (do not listen to live music; unless you will listen to MIDI music = prohibit birth unless there will be no suffering), nor would they particularly enjoy such music (an error-free life). What we love is not perfect machine sound, but the human excellence that transcends the performer’s sweat, tension, and even occasional mistakes. In this way, morality should aim not for flawlessness but for excellence.

Then, among conflicting intuitions, by what standard should we select our intuitions? I wish to examine the reasons why Benatar’s combination of intuitions should be rejected from three dimensions.

First, coherence among selected intuitions. Moral intuitions are not isolated judgments but must harmonize with other beliefs we hold. Benatar’s “suffering avoidance priority” intuition conflicts with the intuition he simultaneously acknowledges that “life is worth continuing.” If existence itself is harm, why is death a greater harm? In contrast, the intuition of “value realization” assigns consistently positive evaluations to both the continuation and starting of life. In terms of internal coherence among intuitions, the tension of self-contradiction is more pronounced in Benatar’s system.

Second, from the perspective of reflective equilibrium as proposed by Rawls. We arrive at moral judgments by moving back and forth between individual intuitions and general principles, mutually adjusting them. Benatar started from the micro-level intuition of “suffering avoidance” and derived the macro-level principle that “all birth is harm.” However, this principle directly conflicts with humanity’s universal macro-level intuitions that “nevertheless, life is worth living” and “meaning can be found through suffering.” In the process of reflective equilibrium, principles that contradict the overwhelming majority of human experience should be modified or rejected. Benatar attempts to resolve this conflict by pointing to “psychological bias,” but this is rejecting the methodology of reflective equilibrium, not winning within it.

Third, the reasonableness of practical ethics. Moral theory must ultimately guide our lives. Benatar’s anti-natalism is an extreme conclusion that no human community could readily accept. Of course, “many people reject it” does not mean “it is wrong.” However, if a moral theory demands the extinction of all agents who follow it, it becomes a self-destructive theory. As Hans Jonas pointed out, the continuation of humanity is itself a supreme imperative. To discuss moral responsibility toward future generations, the subject of that responsibility—humanity—must continue to exist, and morality cannot be established where moral agents are absent. Since Benatar’s anti-natalism results in the extinction of moral agents themselves, it possesses the fundamental limitation of being a self-destructive theory.

In conclusion, the selection of intuitions need not be this arbitrary. By the three criteria of internal coherence, reflective equilibrium, and practical reasonableness, Benatar’s “suffering avoidance priority” intuition is less persuasive than the intuition of “value realization possibility.” That is, this is not simply my “preferring” an opposing intuition, but the result of “selecting” a more justifiable intuition through rational argumentation.

5. The Role of Parents: Perpetrators or Architects?

Benatar uses the intuition that “it is moral not to bring a child with a serious genetic disease into existence” as evidence for asymmetry. However, this intuition is better explained from the perspective of responsible parenting rather than anti-natalism. This is because the role of parents is not, as Benatar implies, that of “perpetrators” throwing children into a pit of suffering, but is actually closer to architects building the foundation upon which a child can live their life.

Healthy child: A situation where physical and social foundations (soil, the foundation of a house) are provided so that the child can build their life upon them.
Serious genetic disease: A situation where the very foundation for the child to live with dignity as a subject responsible for their own life continuously collapses. This is a situation where the failure of construction is foreseen.

The reason we may praise parents who choose not to procreate in cases of genetic disease is not, in Benatar’s terms, because “birth itself is harm,” but because, as parents, they cannot provide the minimum foundation the child can bear, or because the difficulty level becomes too high (causing serious suffering not only to the child who will come to exist but also to the parents who will raise them).

Benatar would likely counter that “no human has a proper house (a life without suffering).” However, the majority of humans affirm their existence despite suffering, which is one part of life. Benatar dismisses all of this as “delusion,” but as shown in the Pollyanna critique that follows, this is merely an unverifiable dogmatic belief. Moreover, while “all lives contain suffering” is true, the proposition “all suffering overwhelms existence” is an unprovable falsehood. That we should not build collapsing houses does not lead to the conclusion that we should cease all construction. This only derives a conditional duty to “strive to build sturdy houses.”

Additionally, Benatar would argue that “a child cannot consent to birth. It is unjust to expose others to risk without consent.”

However, first, parents expose children not merely to “risk” but to “possibility,” and according to the conditional procreative ethics I will subsequently propose, parents continually strive to provide the soil to bring the child’s possibilities to fruition in happiness.

Second, the impossibility of consent in structurally impossible situations does not itself prohibit the act. When intervening in another’s life in situations where consent is impossible, the moral standard should be not “prior consent” but “whether the future subject could reasonably reject it” (Scanlon). In addition, parents treat the child as an end rather than a means (Kantian position) and bear the duty to provide optimal soil for the child to affirm their life (Scanlonian and Rawlsian positions).

From a Kantian perspective, the core of the moral problem is not the physical absence of consent, but whether the subject is treated merely as a “means” or as an “end.” If parents have a child for their own old-age security or mere pleasure and then neglect them, this is indeed violence that instrumentalizes the child. However, if parents shoulder the “perfect duty” of raising the child as an independent moral agent and dedicate themselves as architects, this becomes a legitimate invitation premised on the “rational consent” that the future rational being would give.

Borrowing John Rawls’s “veil of ignorance” as Benatar did, rational parties would have sufficient probability of choosing “conditional existence” under the premise that parents guarantee life’s basic values. Additionally, according to Scanlon’s principle of “reasonable rejectability,” if parents have prepared the foundation with sufficient love and responsibility, the child would find it difficult to reasonably reject their birth. That is, reproduction transcends mere biological instinct to become a sophisticated moral project aimed at granting autonomy and meaning in life to another.

Of course, Rawls conducted his thought experiment with “already existing people” as subjects, but following Benatar’s attempt, we can slightly modify this to apply to this problem by applying the concept of “hypothetical contract” under the assumption that “non-existent people” are rational. That is, suppose the child to be born decides whether to be born from behind a “veil of ignorance,” not knowing what their fate will be. Benatar would argue they would choose non-existence to avoid suffering, but rational parties would likely agree to a contract choosing “conditional existence” under the premise that parents guarantee or at least continually strive to provide the minimum basic values for living. That is, if parents fulfill their responsibility as “architects” to support the child’s life, this becomes a legitimate act of faithfully executing the hypothetical contract with the child.

Benatar argues that applying Rawls’s maximin principle requires maximum consideration of the worst case (suffering gained by coming into existence), therefore birth should be prohibited. That is, since one cannot exclude the possibility of being born as the least advantaged member of that society behind the veil of ignorance, one should weight the possibility of becoming the least advantaged, maximize safety, and protect the minimum satisfaction obtainable even in the worst situation—which is anti-natalism.

However, this can be sufficiently rebutted. (a) This is a general objection to Rawlsian theory: the strategy of optimizing average outcomes considering probabilities from the perspective of expected utility maximization remains valid. That is, even behind the veil of ignorance, if most lives are acceptable, one can choose birth. (b) Even applying the maximin principle, if “conditional procreative ethics” is presupposed in society, the worst case can be redefined not as “existence itself” but as “existence under poor conditions.” Furthermore, Benatar presupposes that all life is suffering anyway, so it is questionable whether the logic of “maximizing the minimum” within that even holds. Therefore, anti-natalism is not derived whether through Rawls’s principles or not.

Benatar would likely still argue that some people would reject their birth, and the non-rejection by the majority is due to psychological bias. However, all moral principles permit some exceptions, and what matters is that if the majority cannot reasonably reject, and if this is not merely psychological bias but actual value judgment, this carries considerable significance. This is because uncertainty accompanies all (moral) actions, and if rational expectations are met, some justification is possible. If prior actions are prohibited merely by the possibility of post-hoc rejection, almost all actions affecting others would be prohibited, and people could no longer live.

6. How Should We Evaluate Individual Happiness?

Benatar attributes people’s evaluation of their own lives as happy to the “Pollyanna effect (optimism bias)” and adaptation mechanisms, arguing that objectively, all lives are bad.

However, the claim “your feeling of happiness is self-deception” is an unfalsifiable claim.

If you say life is miserable → It becomes Benatar’s evidence.
If you say life is happy → It becomes evidence of self-deception.

Even if this were a falsifiable claim, how would one measure the objective badness of the everyday discomforts Benatar lists (hunger, fatigue, etc.), birth-aging-sickness-death, violence and war, disasters, and death as objective suffering? And how would one evaluate the objective goodness without the “bias” Benatar identifies? Is he not grossly overestimating only suffering and risk?

The psychological studies Benatar cites showing that subjective well-being is disconnected from objective conditions are more persuasively interpreted as evidence suggesting that quality of life cannot be reduced solely to objective conditions (particularly the total amount of suffering among them).

Human “adaptation” ability is a strength of the human species. That we can find happiness even amid difficulties—does this not show that life is not as bad as thought? Benatar says the adaptation ability deceives us—it merely makes us feel objectively bad situations as less bad. But what is “objectively” bad? If the person involved does not feel it is bad, is it truly bad?

Of course, special cases exist where subjective satisfaction masks overwhelmingly objective misery, like “adaptive preference” or “Stockholm syndrome.” However, this is a concept that holds when a comparable general, normal state (freedom, health, etc.) exists.

As Heidegger intuited, the meaning of human existence paradoxically comes from its “finitude.” Because it is not eternal, time is precious; because it can be lost, love is urgent. Benatar opposes construction itself based on death (the collapse of the house), but parents give the child not a “house that will collapse” but “time that can shine because it is finite.”

Birth-aging-sickness-death, the overwhelming examples of suffering Benatar presents, are not special abnormal states but existential conditions of all humans, hence normal states. Since the alternative for comparison (non-existence) is an inexperienceable state, declaring on this basis that “current satisfaction is delusion” constitutes a logical leap. Beyond this, Benatar’s analogy of the “happy slave” also raises the question: if “all” humans are slaves, can the concept of “slave” exist? Similarly, as Benatar suggests, if everyone is a “patient” deluded into thinking they are happy, can such a phenomenon be called a disease, and furthermore, can those people be called patients?

Benatar might respond as follows: “If there existed a planet inhabited solely by beings who suffer from severe headaches, would their pain not constitute objective suffering? The human affirmation of life is merely a collective delusion of the same kind.” In response, I would first note that this thought experiment contains a crucial hidden premise: namely, that the sensation experienced by this species possesses the same unpleasant qualia that we associate with “headaches.” However, this is far from self-evident. What if these beings possess neurological patterns that appear to us as “headaches,” yet they experience them subjectively as neutral or even pleasurable? Just as we convert pain signals from spicy food into pleasure, their “headaches” might not constitute suffering at all.

Consequently, for Benatar’s thought experiment to hold validity, it must be premised on the condition that the species in question subjectively experiences the sensation as genuinely unpleasant. Even granting this premise, if such headaches constitute a necessary condition for their existence, cognition, and capacity to love, they would likely accept them not as ‘errors to be eliminated,’ but as a ‘tax on life.’

Of course, this does not imply that they would merely acquiesce to pain with passive resignation. Presumably, this species would strive to mitigate the headaches while simultaneously enjoying the pleasures of life. The human condition is analogous; we, too, continuously endeavor to minimize the forms of suffering Benatar identifies while seeking to maximize life’s inherent value.

However, I posit that these ameliorative efforts do not equate to a negation of life itself. In other words, while I acknowledge that such headaches represent objective ‘pain’ (in a physiological sense), this does not necessarily entail subjective ‘suffering,’ nor does it imply that existence itself is a ‘disease’ requiring a cure. This is because human beings possess the capacity to refrain from interpreting real sensory pain as existential meaninglessness, and moreover, to generate alternative, creative meanings from such experiences.

This reveals that the “badness” of pain is not an objective property of the sensation itself, but rather depends on the evaluation, perception and meaning-attribution of the experiencing subject.

At this juncture, Benatar’s argument confronts a critical self-defeating contradiction. He dismisses human subjective well-being as a product of ‘evolutionary bias’ or ‘delusion,’ thereby undermining its validity. However, if the reality of positive subjectivity (happiness) is denied, logical consistency demands that the reality of negative subjectivity (pain) must also be rejected. If the sentiment ‘I am happy’ is merely a cerebral deception, then the sensation ‘I am in pain’ is reducible to mere electrical signals in the nervous system; what grounds remain, then, to assert its objective ‘badness’?

Ultimately, Benatar commits the fallacy of selectively attributing authority to subjective experience to support his thesis. The stance of viewing happiness with skepticism as a fabrication, while maintaining a conviction in the reality of pain, is indistinguishable from the very ‘bias’ he critiques. By negating the value of subjective experience to invalidate happiness, Benatar inadvertently dismantles the foundation of ‘the intrinsic badness of pain’—the singular pillar upon which his rejection of existence rests.

For Benatar’s argument to possess universal validity, he would need to demonstrate that all conscious beings experience and evaluate pain in identical ways—a claim that is empirically and logically unverifiable.

I acknowledge the thrust of Benatar’s critique that the reported life satisfaction of most people may stem from a ‘systematic bias.’ I also concede that certain conditions—such as extreme suffering, poverty, and violence—constitute objective harms. However, the conditions of normal human life are far more multifaceted. Identical objective conditions can engender vastly different meanings.

Must we perceive the pain of childbirth as a symptom of a ‘disease’ called reproduction? Must we view the arduousness of a challenge merely as ‘oppression’ imposed by social structures to impede success? Ultimately, it is the interplay between an individual’s subjective interpretation and objective conditions (regardless of the precise weight assigned to each) that determines ‘happiness’ and ‘suffering.’

Therefore, in my view, human adaptation mechanisms should not be dismissed as ‘psychological bias,’ as Benatar suggests. Rather, they represent a remarkable resilience and an existential strength of the human species. This distinction fundamentally arises from a difference in how we perceive and interpret the existing fact of ‘happy humans.’

7. Conclusion: Not Skepticism About Life, but Strengthened Responsibility Is Needed

David Benatar’s anti-natalism throws us an uncomfortable but necessary truth. Life certainly contains indelible suffering, and bringing another into this world carries enormous moral weight. His philosophy serves as a powerful antidote to the naive optimism that “life is unconditionally a blessing.”

However, an antidote cannot become a staple food. His conclusion to permanently seal off the very possibility of existence for fear of suffering is like burning down the house to catch a bedbug. His argument, contrary to intention, fails to logically confirm anti-natalism. This is because the core premises of asymmetry and moral intuitiveness are not logical necessities but merely tools to justify the pessimistic intuitions he aimed to achieve.

The meaningful lesson remaining after removing these logical gaps is simple: birth is not a natural phenomenon occurring in a moral vacuum, but a grave moral act that intervenes in another’s fate. Therefore, the path we should take is not to cease procreation, but to treat procreation more gravely. Having a child should not be merely an act of passing on genes, but a solemn contract and promise to share the weight of life that one human being will bear.

The “conditional” here does not mean an unachievable standard demanding Benatar’s level of complete absence of suffering (an inhuman level), but rather the responsibility to continually strive to prepare the soil so that the being to be born can bear life’s weight, affirm that life, and ultimately build a happy life—this responsibility belongs to parents and adults who do what they can. Specifically, it means the practical and concrete responsibility to treat the child as an end, not a means, as Kant stated; to guarantee the minimum basic values Rawls proposed; and from Scanlon’s perspective, to raise the child so they will not later condemn their own life. At this point, human life becomes not risk and suffering that must be unconditionally eliminated as Benatar claims, but possibility that should be responsibly prepared and opened.

Of course, Benatar would also argue that it is uncertain whether the conditions I propose will be met, and that it is unethical for the child to bear the cost of failure. However, all things are probabilistic. This is justified in that we pay rational attention, strive to minimize risk, and bear considerable responsibility (cost) for failure as parents. I am not trying to justify carelessness by saying that taking responsibility afterward settles everything, but rather cautioning against Benatar’s excessive perfectionism. No life can be perfectly without suffering, and therefore no birth can be justified—such logic demands an impossible standard. Humans are not perfect. By acknowledging this, we can escape many cognitive errors.

The conditional procreative ethics I propose is not the only logically derived alternative from Benatar’s argument, but rather the most responsible ethical attitude we can choose after accepting his problematic concerns while rejecting his conclusion. Of course, clarifying in greater detail what conditions must be met for birth to be justified and how far parental responsibility extends will be a highly contentious and difficult task. However, rather than blindly accepting the illogical conclusion that living and reproducing as humans do is immoral, shouldering this contentious task would be a far more productive and humane path.