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Dr. David Benatar is professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings. He’s also the author of books like The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (2012), and The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (2017).

In this episode, we focus on anti-natalism, and its several ramifications. We tackle the asymmetry argument from different angles. We talk about how we are predisposed to evaluate life, and if we can do it objectively. We establish a distinction between a life worth continuing and a life worth starting. And we also go through some specific topics like life for nonhuman animals, abortion, suicide, euthanasia, and environmentalism. 

Time Links:

01:01 The anti-natalist position

01:54 The asymmetry argument, or comparing nonexistence to existence in terms of pain and pleasure              

05:55 The biases we have to evaluate life      

14:22 The is-ought problem   

17:32 How to properly determine if life is worth living    

22:33 Life worth continuing vs life worth starting      

27:40 Does progress make a difference?     

36:37 About growth through adversity

39:02 What about nonhuman animals? 

41:58 Abortion

43:52 Suicide

50:31 Euthanasia

53:50 The various ways to measure pain and pleasure in life

55:51 Anti-natalism and environmentalism

58:54 More people = more innovation?

1:01:13 Follow Dr. Benatar’s work!   

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Follow Dr. Benatar’s work:

Faculty page: https://tinyurl.com/yd8nrobn

Better Never to Have Been: https://tinyurl.com/hwceorl

The Human Predicament: https://tinyurl.com/y8kmdck2

Other books: https://tinyurl.com/yb6k7r4m

Twitter handle: @d_benatar

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