Why it is better to never come into existance - David Benatar
Offline Let me see if I can get this right..... I doubt it
Pain is bad and pleasure is good. The absence of pain is good, The absense of pleasure is bad this I think everyone agrees on, but it only applies if you exist. If you never come into existance Absense of pain is good because well no one is suffering. But the absense of pleasure is not bad because no one has had that pleasure deprived of them so no one is hurt so it isn't bad. Everyone who comes into this world is garenteed to feel pain at some point so you are garenteed to increse the amount of pain in the world witch is bad, but you arn't garenteed to have enough pleasure to out weigh that pain witch is bad. By not existing you cannot bring pain witch is good. But because by not existing no one is hurt by the lack of pleasure it is not bad.
So to try make that make more sense
Existance
pain-bad
no pain-good
pleasure - good
no pleasure - bad
You will bring pain into the world - bad
No garentee that for more pleasure than pain - bad
non existance
There can be no pain -good
the lack of pleasure -not bad
Where as with non existance there is no 'bad' as you don't exist, but there is 'good' because there is no pain. The lack of pleasure doesn't matter as it is not bad.
So if you if you exist there is garenteed pain where as with non existance there is no pain. So it is better never to come into existance as there is less pain. You are not garenteed to have enough pleasure to out weigh that pain if you exist but there is no such problem if you don't exist futher showing it is better never to come into existance. So if all this follows it would be better never to come into existance. So in reality humans should stop having children.
P.S. sorry if it makes no sense kinda tired.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
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Offline Tapey wrote:How can it be irrelevant? It's central to the question: You're trying to make a value judgment on which is "better"; existing or not existing. If you don't exist, you can't make a value judgment, thus it's neither good nor bad. If you do exist, then you can make a value judgment, thus it's both good and bad - to what degree depending on your experiences. So, the two don't compare at all. It's a meaningless question.But here I think it is irrelavant that there is no one to make the judgment call. The below statment is widly held, you are free to argue against that btw. We are making the judgement from the perspective of existance so we must use 'good' and 'bad' judgemments. perhaps the quote below will make up for my bad explaination earlier.
Sorry I missed this earlier, I cant see why it would matter that people not existing cannot make the judgemnt, we are arguing it now in existance. Basically saying it would be better never to be born because a 'null' position would be better than the one we find our selves in.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
- Login to post comments
Offline JillSwift wrote:Tapey wrote:How can it be irrelevant? It's central to the question: You're trying to make a value judgment on which is "better"; existing or not existing. If you don't exist, you can't make a value judgment, thus it's neither good nor bad. If you do exist, then you can make a value judgment, thus it's both good and bad - to what degree depending on your experiences. So, the two don't compare at all. It's a meaningless question.But here I think it is irrelavant that there is no one to make the judgment call. The below statment is widly held, you are free to argue against that btw. We are making the judgement from the perspective of existance so we must use 'good' and 'bad' judgemments. perhaps the quote below will make up for my bad explaination earlier.
Sorry I missed this earlier, I cant see why it would matter that people not existing cannot make the judgemnt, we are arguing it now in existance. Basically saying it would be better never to be born because a 'null' position would be better than the one we find our selves in.
Making a value judgment, a better question would probably be: Am I happy with this existence?
Which is going to depend entirely on an individual's experiences. No absolute answer can be had because there is no absolute environment in which we all live. Climate, culture, economics, social position, genetics and biology all vary widely.
And if you are not satisfied with your existence, then non-existence does not improve anything - again, because it's a null. Values only matter to something that can have values. You can not value your non-existence over an existence you would suffer in because... .you don't exist.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
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Offline Tapey wrote:Because a null position - non-existence - isn't good or bad or up or down or left or right or happy or sad. It's nothing at all.JillSwift wrote:Tapey wrote:How can it be irrelevant? It's central to the question: You're trying to make a value judgment on which is "better"; existing or not existing. If you don't exist, you can't make a value judgment, thus it's neither good nor bad. If you do exist, then you can make a value judgment, thus it's both good and bad - to what degree depending on your experiences. So, the two don't compare at all. It's a meaningless question.But here I think it is irrelavant that there is no one to make the judgment call. The below statment is widly held, you are free to argue against that btw. We are making the judgement from the perspective of existance so we must use 'good' and 'bad' judgemments. perhaps the quote below will make up for my bad explaination earlier.
Sorry I missed this earlier, I cant see why it would matter that people not existing cannot make the judgemnt, we are arguing it now in existance. Basically saying it would be better never to be born because a 'null' position would be better than the one we find our selves in.
Making a value judgment, a better question would probably be: Am I happy with this existence?
Which is going to depend entirely on an individual's experiences. No absolute answer can be had because there is no absolute environment in which we all live. Climate, culture, economics, social position, genetics and biology all vary widely.
And if you are not satisfied with your existence, then non-existence does not improve anything - again, because it's a null. Values only matter to something that can have values. You can not value your non-existence over an existence you would suffer in because... .you don't exist.
Aah now I see what you mean but no, The arguement says it would better than existing, Having no happy sad etc, would be better than having it. Yes it does depend on indiviual experiaances but there can be no certainty that that there will be more pleasure than pain so it is immoral to bring people into existance. Would you admit it would be better for a child that was tortured from birth for years and died immediately after never of been born? If so that null position is better it does improve even though you don't exist. But as I said this isn't some hard and fast thing that proves that it would be better not to exist, there are plenty of holes but im not sure this is one of them.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
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Offline Aah now I see what you mean but no, The arguement says it would better than existing, Having no happy sad etc, would be better than having it.
Not existing is not at all equal to not having no happy and no sad. Something that does not exist can not posses nor fail to posses anything, including suffering or pleasure.
Yes it does depend on indiviual experiaances but there can be no certainty that that there will be more pleasure than pain so it is immoral to bring people into existance. Would you admit it would be better for a child that was tortured from birth for years and died immediately after never of been born? If so that null position is better it does improve even though you don't exist. But as I said this isn't some hard and fast thing that proves that it would be better not to exist, there are plenty of holes but im not sure this is one of them.
Again, value judgments only matter to that which can hold values. Meaning, good and bad only matter to people who exist. Since it's not possible to value non-existence, its value can not be compared to existence.
This also works the other way, from existence to non-existence: Suicide does not improve or worsen a person's suffering, it just stops making any difference. They don't value the end of suffering because they can't, and the choice was made (ostensibly) because they no longer value thier existence for the suffering.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
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Offline Tapey wrote:Aah now I see what you mean but no, The arguement says it would better than existing, Having no happy sad etc, would be better than having it.Not existing is not at all equal to not having no happy and no sad. Something that does not exist can not posses nor fail to posses anything, including suffering or pleasure.
Yes I understand that
Tapey wrote:Yes it does depend on indiviual experiaances but there can be no certainty that that there will be more pleasure than pain so it is immoral to bring people into existance. Would you admit it would be better for a child that was tortured from birth for years and died immediately after never of been born? If so that null position is better it does improve even though you don't exist. But as I said this isn't some hard and fast thing that proves that it would be better not to exist, there are plenty of holes but im not sure this is one of them.I would not admit it would be "better" that a child who had a short and torturous life would have never been born in the first place because I'm not fooled into thinking non-existence is a state of being. Once the child exists it makes sense to make value judgments about its life - but prior to its existence there is nothing to judge.
Again, value judgments only matter to that which can hold values. Meaning, good and bad only matter to people who exist. Since it's not possible to value non-existence, its value can not be compared to existence.
This also works the other way, from existence to non-existence: Suicide does not improve or worsen a person's suffering, it just stops making any difference. They don't value the end of suffering because they can't, and the choice was made (ostensibly) because they no longer value thier existence for the suffering.
It doesn't matter that non existance is not a state of being. Think about it, short and painfull life with nothing pleasurable about it, how could it be a good thing for it to come into existance? Here good is not so much relating to the child but the situation as it does with most of the posts. I would argue it would be better that it not be born as then because of the null position there would be no pain , no anything either but by coming into existance it causes pain. Relating to the situation not the person, the good and bad tags here relate to the situation.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
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Offline It doesn't matter that non existance is not a state of being. Think about it, short and painfull life with nothing pleasurable about it, how could it be a good thing for it to come into existance? Here good is not so much relating to the child but the situation as it does with most of the posts. I would argue it would be better that it not be born as then because of the null position there would be no pain , no anything either but by coming into existance it causes pain. Relating to the situation not the person, the good and bad tags here relate to the situation.
After mulling this over a bit more, I concede.
The moral consequences develop entirely as a matter of our attempts to predict the quality of the life being considered for existence; where one is asking "Will this new life be more about happiness than suffering?" It is immoral to bring into existence a life that you can predict will likely be more suffering than happiness. I'm not sure about the morality of bringing a life into existence where you are without any ability to predict its quality.
However, asking "Would this current life be improved by not having existed?" is still a meaningless question for the reasons I state above.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
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Offline Tapey wrote:It doesn't matter that non existance is not a state of being. Think about it, short and painfull life with nothing pleasurable about it, how could it be a good thing for it to come into existance? Here good is not so much relating to the child but the situation as it does with most of the posts. I would argue it would be better that it not be born as then because of the null position there would be no pain , no anything either but by coming into existance it causes pain. Relating to the situation not the person, the good and bad tags here relate to the situation.
After mulling this over a bit more, I concede.
The moral consequences develop entirely as a matter of our attempts to predict the quality of the life being considered for existence; where one is asking "Will this new life be more about happiness than suffering?" It is immoral to bring into existence a life that you can predict will likely be more suffering than happiness. I'm not sure about the morality of bringing a life into existence where you are without any ability to predict its quality.
However, asking "Would this current life be improved by not having existed?" is still a meaningless question for the reasons I state above.
Yes I conceded that is a truely meaningless question, but would the situation be improved is not, You are right, this arguement is so flawed its not even funny. The ovious, who says all there is to life is pleasure and pain?
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
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Offline Magus wrote:Don't you have to multiply by 0 upon death?
no clue what you are geting at but death is not the argument so is irrelavant. non existance, never being born is.
I thought we were comparing never being born with being born (which eventually ends in death). How is the end result of being born not relevant?
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
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Offline Tapey wrote:Magus wrote:Don't you have to multiply by 0 upon death?
no clue what you are geting at but death is not the argument so is irrelavant. non existance, never being born is.
I thought we were comparing never being born with being born (which eventually ends in death). How is the end result of being born not relevant?
Yes now I get it i think, maybe a little less with the multiplying, not good with that 
It is relavant if you were talking about being in the process of dieing as that effects pleasure/pain, I was thinking you had the wrong end of the stick but maybe not. In essence yes you do multiply by 0 when you die. But that doesn't affect the argument. You have come into existance have your pain/pleasure and leave existance again vs. never coming into existance. In the first the situation can be viewed as bad because of all that has been written (if you agree with it that is) . Even though you leave existance that doesn't negate what happened during your existance. But maybe iv mis understood you tbh Im not sure.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
- Login to post comments
Offline Are you pleasured by the lack of pain?
In a way yes wouldn't you feel good if there was less pain in the world?
Would you feel good about it if you didn't exist?
I wouldn't be sad if there was less pleasure because no one would of been deprived of it.
So if you didn't exist, it wouldn't be bad that you have no pleasure, but it would be good that you have no pain? Why?
This reallty is a judgment thing, if you don't agree thats fine this is just david benetars judgement of it.
But, this judgment seems inconsistent.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline butterbattle wrote:Are you pleasured by the lack of pain?Tapey wrote:In a way yes wouldn't you feel good if there was less pain in the world?Would you feel good about it if you didn't exist?
Tapey wrote:I wouldn't be sad if there was less pleasure because no one would of been deprived of it.So if you didn't exist, it wouldn't be bad that you have no pleasure, but it would be good that you have no pain? Why?
Tapey wrote:This reallty is a judgment thing, if you don't agree thats fine this is just david benetars judgement of it.But, this judgment seems inconsistent.
Meaningless questions as I wouldn't feel anything, It is the situation that is being judged . The situation would be good if there was less pain in the world.
About the inconsistency, surly you agree that pleasure and pain are two seperatre things? You can feel pleasure and you can feel pain or you can feel both, so the fact that I seem to judging them seperatly shouldn't matter as they are not the same thing and they are not so tightly linked.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
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Offline I'm so stoked David Benatar will be having a lecture at my university, He is the guy who came up with this argument. Indeed that was the entire point of this thread to get ideas for questions.
P.S. at university I cannot log on, It won't let me.
Tapey
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Offline (double post)
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline That doesn't matter.
There can be no pain -goodthe lack of pleasure -not bad
The OP claims that non-existence is better than existence because the lack of pain during non-existence would be good, but the lack of pleasure is somehow "not bad." David Benatar's entire argument rests on these vague, incoherent assumptions. The explanation for the former is that lack of pain is always good. The explanation for the latter is that no one was deprived of this pleasure since they didn't exist.
That seems rather inconsistent, doesn't it? The first person didn't exist either; what's so great about that individual not feeling pain? This just feels like special pleading, for you still haven't explained why I cannot apply the same logic in reverse or vice-versa. Am I not equally justified in claiming that the lack of pain is "not good" since no one was relieved of it and that the lack of pleasure is bad because lack of pleasure is always bad? If not, why not?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline That doesn't matter.
Tapey wrote:There can be no pain -goodthe lack of pleasure -not bad
The OP claims that non-existence is better than existence because the lack of pain during non-existence would be good, but the lack of pleasure is somehow "not bad." David Benatar's entire argument rests on these vague, incoherent assumptions. The explanation for the former is that lack of pain is always good. The explanation for the latter is that no one was deprived of this pleasure since they didn't exist.
That seems rather inconsistent, doesn't it? The first person didn't exist either; what's so great about that individual not feeling pain? This just feels like special pleading, for you still haven't explained why I cannot apply the same logic in reverse or vice-versa. Am I not equally justified in claiming that the lack of pain is "not good" since no one was relieved of it and that the lack of pleasure is bad because lack of pleasure is always bad? If not, why not?
Yes they do rest rather vague terms, but I don't think they are incosistant, they make sense in a weird kind of way but maybe im wrong here as alot of people seem to think so, It would be foolish for me to think im definatly right. Anyway I think I have all I needed from this post, David Benetar is doing a guest lecture at my university on this subject and I wanted some inspiration for questions I think I will ask him to further explain why this isn't inconsistant if he doesn't during the actual lecture. I got a few ideas lined up now for questions.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
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First, you ignore that existence as such is a good which outweighs a certain degree of pain. Think about it: If you had to choose between death and a whole life lived with a minor headache, would you really choose death?
Second, you ignore that certain sorts of pleasure are of such a sort that no pain can outweigh them. For example, I knew one cancer patient who lived for weeks in great pain, because he wanted his children to have their father around for a little longer. Clearly, the pleasure of knowing that his children had their father around (or some other factor related to his children's having a father) outweighed the influence of the pain on his decision. To clarify, this sort of pleasure does not "outweigh" the pain in a literal sense. However, it is of a qualitatively different sort that completely undercuts the influence the pain would otherwise have on a rational person's deliberation.
Third, your reasoning is inconsistent:
You are reasoning differently for absence of pain and absence of pleasure. If we consistently apply the reasoning you applied to absence of pain, we find that absence of pleasure is bad, because no one is experiencing pleasure. If we consistently apply the reasoning that you applied to absence of pleasure, we find that the absence of pain is not good, because no one was saved from suffering.
Fourth - and this is a problem with the above excerpt as well as the whole OP - you provide no standard for good or bad. This, I think, was the reason you were inconsistent above: you didn't know what standard you were measuring absence of pain and absence of pleasure against, so you could not be consistent in your evaluation.
Q: Why didn't you address (post x) that I made in response to you nine minutes ago???
A: Because I have (a) a job, (b) familial obligations, (c) social obligations, and (d) probably a lot of other atheists responded to the same post you did, since I am practically the token Christian on this site now. Be patient, please.
That seems rather inconsistent. In the same way, I can argue that absence of pain is not good because the person was not relieved from pain.
These things are impossible to quantify anyways.
Pain - bad
Lack of pain - good
Pleasure - good
Lack of pleasure - bad
You will bring pain into the world - bad
You will bring pleasure into the world - good
No guarantee that you will contribute more pain than pleasure or more pleasure than pain - neutral
Non-existence:
Lack of pain - good
Lack of pleasure - bad
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Just for the record I don't believe this stuff I just find it interesting.
Now it is not about death it is about never being born or conceived. So your example is pointless. But you miss the point of the hole argument. Yes pleasure can be worth pain but it is irrelavant, perhaps I didn't explan properly. By bringing someone into the world you are garenteed to bring more pain into the world, witch is bad. Yes you will bring plesure aswell but there is no garentee that it will out weigh the pain. While if you never are born there will be less pain in the world witch is good and because you were never born you don't exist so the pleasure hasn't been taken from some one so it isn't bad. It is saying by having children you will bring more pain into the world so it is a bad thing and the lack of pleasure is irelavant.
You miss the point here again you don't exist so the fact that there is no pleasure for you is irelevant. I see I didn't explain nicely at first, but mabe you stil think of the same objections.
So here a question
Why would the absesnse of pleasure be bad if no one has been deprived of it?
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Yes I see your point but will you admit that to have no pain is a good thing? and that to have pain is a bad thing? same with pleasure while you exist? If so then for the purpose of the arguement that is what is being refered to. "good and bad" here just to discribe what is commonly considered.
No problem here if you are talking about existance
The fact that there is no garentee is the point, but yes I didn't right it down badly. Because there is no garentee it is uncertain weather there will be more pleasure or pain. But with non existance there is no uncertainty, there is neither and I have explain why neither is a bad thing.
Ok you don't exist so no one is harmed by the lack of pleasure so it its not bad, not good either
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Why would lack of pain be good if no one has been relieved of it?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I think you are going in the wrong direction here. Do you agree that to be in pain is a bad thing? To not be in pain is a good thing because you are not experianceing that bad thing. It is good to not be experiancing bad.
Also
Ok would you agree with this
the absense of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Non-existence is a null position, as there is nothing making a value judgment. Things are only good or bad when there is a consciousness in existence to make that differentiation. Thus comparing the goodness or badness of existence versus non-existence is meaningless.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Since this appears at least a bit random, I'll toss in the suggestion that pain isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is the single most effective educator known to man.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
That is the exact point, if you exist the lack of pleasure is bad because it has been deprived of you while the lack of pain is good because you are not in pain. Pleasure and pain are to separate things so the fact you experiance neither in a sitution doesn't affect it. I guess you would discribe it as neutral.
But here I think it is irrelavant that there is no one to make the judgment call. The below statment is widly held, you are free to argue against that btw. We are making the judgement from the perspective of existance so we must use 'good' and 'bad' judgemments. perhaps the quote below will make up for my bad explaination earlier.
I get the feeling iv still worded it wrong,
here, is how he explains it before he gets onto non existance
Why would the last to be meaningless in non existance? We exist so we make the judgment.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
This I beliveve falls into the uncertainty part, In the vast majority of cases though is pain good?
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Undeterminable. We'd need a list of all the cases of experiences of pain and their causes. However, the answer would probably be yes. The vast majority of cases of pain from my experience amount to stubbing of toes and burning oneself on a hot surface or freezing ones tongue to a pole and the like. Inflicted pain is abundant, but much less frequent.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Hmm yes I see that you are probably right thier. But I don't think it affects the argument because it is still uncertian. Oviously with good and bad pleasure and painis goes both ways as in, we want more pleasure in the world wewant more 'good' in the world. same sort of thing with pain. with this kind of pain I would submit that as not bad as their is pain but with a good effect. So the uncertiantity is still thier. There is no garentee that there will be more enough pleasure/'good' to out weigh the pain/'bad'
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
My position is that it is incoherent to apply these concepts to nonexistence. Nevertheless, my point is that you must either argue lack of pleasure is bad and lack of pain is good, or, lack of pleasure is not bad because you haven't been deprived of it and lack of pain is not good because you haven't been relieved of it. You can't follow one logical train for lack of good and another for lack of pain without justification.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Why, the same logic can always be applied in reverse. You can't avoid it.
3) The absence of pleasure is bad, even if that pleasure is not enjoyed by anyone.
4) The absence of pain is not bad unless there is somebody for which this absence is a relief.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Ok this is how I see it, default state is no pleasure, no pain. I don't see how it could be either one of the other to, depending on the moment you experiance one or the other or both.
The reson the lack of pleasure is not bad is because is because no one is harmed by the lack of pleasure, you are not helped but you are also not harmed. So it can be neither good nor bad. Example are you harmed when your birthday is over and all that pleasure from that day is over?
Another example no one in the world has ever felt pain, would you call that good or bad or not bad/not good? bare in mind no one would be enjoying that good or bad or not bad/not good
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Don't you have to multiply by 0 upon death?
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
no clue what you are geting at but death is not the argument so is irrelavant. non existance, never being born is.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Are you pleasured by the lack of pain?
I would call that an unanswerable question. Nevertheless, I can still easily turn this the other way i.e. if no one in the world has ever felt pleasure, would you call that good or bad or not good/not bad? And, bear in mind, of course, that no one would be disappointed by the lack of pleasure.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
In a way yes wouldn't you feel good if there was less pain in the world? Even though there is no no benefiting from it I would still call that good. With the reverse I wouldn't be sad if there was less pleasure because no one would of been deprived of it. This reallty is a judgment thing, if you don't agree thats fine this is just david benetars judgement of it.
I would call that an unanswerable question. Nevertheless, I can still easily turn this the other way i.e. if no one in the world has ever felt pleasure, would you call that good or bad or not good/not bad? And, bear in mind, of course, that no one would be disappointed by the lack of pleasure.
refer above It covers this I think.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.