This is where the antinatalist position has an advantage for me; most people think that egoistical behavior is only wrong when someone else is exploited or harmed for someone else's selfish benefit. That implies that selfishly choosing not to have children is not wrong, but selfishly choosing to have children can be wrong. Having said that, I'm not convinced that selfishly having children is always wrong(although it can never be right or good to do). — TheHedoMinimalist

If the children are harmed by being brought into existence when the alternative is nothing, then nothing is better alternative as it is always good not to be harmed.

. Although, I don't think benefiting your family necessarily justifies harming someone and it could never be praiseworthy to harm someone to benefit your family(unless you are also alleviating harm with the benefit). — TheHedoMinimalist

Yes, exposing someone to all the forms of harm life has to offer for a lifestyle choice of being a parent is at odds with the principle of preventing harm is always good, especially if there is no one there to be deprived.

I agree that this argument isn't particularly convincing. I think if someone can't specify what makes life itself or experience itself special, then it's hard to see what point they are trying to make. It's obvious why we love pleasure and hate suffering. It isn't so obvious why we should assume that life or experience is valuable for its own sake. — TheHedoMinimalist

Yes, somehow the idea is that people need to go through the "gauntlet of life". They need to experience their own versions of suffering.. but there is no real justification other than life is somehow inherently better than non-existence. It is a weak argument. It also disregards collateral damage of people who aren't perfectly attuned to the "right" kind of adversity that is just challenging enough to be fun to overcome. That is to say, people may have undo suffering of mental and physical illness, anxieties that exceed "normal parameters", life experiences that are fare more stressful than would be desired by that person. But even if we were to take ALL that collateral damage out, even adversity itself, in its "normal" limits doesn't NEED to be something to go through if the alternative is nothingness. That is to say no actual person who is denied or who cares in the first place.

If we accept the asymmetries above then we would have to conclude that reproduction can be blameworthy but it cannot ever be praiseworthy. Similarly, the act of avoiding or preventing reproduction is categorized by preventing harm and preventing benefit without deprivation. Given this, we would conclude that preventing reproduction can sometimes be praiseworthy but it can never be blameworthy. — TheHedoMinimalist

Yes I can agree with this conclusion. I think your formulation of the argument makes sense. To add to this, I'd like to throw the idea out there that if anything other than harm of the future child consideration is given as a reason for reproduction, it can be considered non-moral or immoral decision and can fall into two general camps of thought- one is egoistic or self-interest and the other is Nietzschean. The egoistic group is less sophisticated in reasoning than the Nietzschean.

The egoistic group has two flavors. The first is the party of procreators that have sexual relations that lead to children by accident. Putting abortion aside, these cases have little planning or forethought and often it is quickly decided that no abortion will take place (for various reasons) and indeed, the child should be brought forth in the world. Usually post-facto reasonings of why the child being born would be a good thing ensues. They will then defer to the reasonings in the second egoistic party of procreators or in some rarer cases become indifferent to parenting all together (thus often leaving the child in harsh, uncared for conditions, unless quick adoption takes place).

The second kind of egoistic group would be ones that have children for the benefit of the idea of family itself. This cultural preference and/or biological drive (though questionable as a biological drive other than the pleasure of satisfying personal preferences or having group acceptance) is to raise a family/have children of one's own/make the grandparents happy/make a contribution of continuing the tribe/seeing one's own progeny and teaching them one's own ideas/companionship/making a family of one's own, etc. These reasons are a variety of preferences that have to do with living a certain lifestyle and revolve around happiness-through-lifestyle-choice (that of being a parent). It also has to do with the social preference and expectations to have children at a certain stage of life. Of course, the actual consideration of the new person is not in question. The child itself is not really thought about in terms of whether it would be a benefit to be brought into existence in the first place (if the alternative is that the child did not have exist at all). Rather, this type of reasoning is completely overlooked. Most people simply would not think in these terms and when presented with the idea, would consider it as not legitimate or irrelevant considerations in relation to their own lifestyle goals and the acceptance of reproduction as a desirable preference by the greater society. Whatever the case may be, the child itself is not really in the consideration of values.

The second camp is the Nietzschean camp. In this view, possible considerations of the future harm/benefit of the child have taken place beforehand. However, the conclusion is that experiencing life is beyond the idea of being harmed or not harmed. Rather, experience is put at a premium (whether it contains adversity/harm or not). Here the idea that people get to live out a story of their own is considered most valuable- even if there is harm. You see, future people in this scenario are seen as "having a chance". They have a chance to build their own life-narrative story, the argument goes. They can be that guy who writes commentary about Wittgenstein's ideas of language in a philosophical work or on a philosophy forum! They can be that guy who skis on weekends. They can be that guy who finds meaning in work. They can be that guy who updates spreadsheets, lays down concrete and rebar building structures, adventures across the world, obtains and loses love, lives a mildly uninteresting, mediocre, anxiety-inducing life for 60 years. Whatever the case may be, the parent thinks that the child will be given a chance to experience life, and write its own narrative. Thus, life is seen as a gift bestowed simply because of the opportunity to experience in the first place. You get to be the advanced ape making a show of yourself and relating with the other advanced apes in intertwined life stories!

What isn't considered in any of this is what the cost would be to a future child if it didn't exist. In all cases, the cost is obviously nothing. No person is deprived of living a life story if it didn't exist. Rather, that is something that results from being born after the fact, but doesn't have to take place. There is nothing writ-large that a being needs to exist to write a life story for itself- that something needs to be in order to experience anything at all. By preventing birth, harm is avoided for a future being with no cost. The universe doesn't weep for non-existence of consciousness. That is of course a projection from the side of the already conscious. The idea that someone needs to exist to have experiences of its own, doesn't make sense in light of the fact that no one needs to go through anything, and no actual person is harmed from not going through anything. Rather, it is more the case that humans are as uncomfortable with the idea of nothingness.

Love doesn't have to be pursued, accomplishments don't have to be won, a life story doesn't have to be lived out and shared. In fact much of life is overcoming adversities, getting over anxieties, dealing with various aspects of the givens of survival-in-a-cultural setting, maintenance of comfort levels, and alleviating boredom with entertainment. Individual preferences based on biological/socially-derived personality and broader cultural cues, fit into this framework of simple survival, comfort maintenance, and boredom-aversion. Why does someone have to live this out though in the first place? What does it matter whether someone exists to push that boulder?

No one needs to go though adversities and life experiences of overcoming-to-get-stronger, if they don't exist in the first place to need it. Why create this need for need? Why create a situation that exposes new people to lacking something that they need to fulfill? Why create a situation that exposes new people to adversity that needs to be overcome? This impulse to create these situations on behalf of someone else is more an indication of the already-living person's inability to cope with the idea of nothingness. Our restless, willful natures prevents creates the notion that a non-existent person is a sad future.. That nothingness is sad. Nothingness is nothing. A philosopher once said, the nothing "noths". Whats wrong with noth-ing? Let non-existent people stay non-existent. Why do people feel we are bearers of some Promethean fire of being that needs to be carried forth and spread? Why use future people as "bearers of knowledge" or "bearers of experience" in such a matter? Is non-existence this scary to people? Is the blessed calm of nothingness seen as a blithe that must be eradicated with the strum und drang of life? What about survival-comfort-relief-boredom-relief needs to be lived out by a future person? What pleasures need to be had, if there was no person there in the first place to care? Certainly we can see the logic that preventing harm is a good thing, and no one loses out who doesn't exist in the first place.

It's not self-evident that the sum is the best way to characterize negative utilitarianism. So the anti-natalist would have to provide some kind of reason why, even under the pretense of accepting the negative utilitarian ethic, we should characterize the NU-function as a sum. — Moliere

I would not characterize it as a sum of all persons or potential persons. Rather in the scenario of choosing whether to procreate, when considering if a new person should exist, not having someone who experiences pleasure is not incumbent. Pleasure creation is not an obligation, especially if no one exists yet. However, as long as one is preventing someone from experiencing harm, it is always good, especially in the case of someone not existing who never has to compromise short term harms for long term gains in the first place or who never has to experience the collateral damage of harm above or beyond what that person would want to contend with in any way had they been able to prevent it.

Not considering harm in the procreation scenario or only calculating an estimate of possible future harms would be putting adversity as a premium as you know you are creating a scenario where the child will have to overcome adversity in a life we know that will challenge the future person. If the person does not exist already, why create and setup this “gauntlet of adversity” situation for a new person who otherwise would not have been deprived (being nonexistent), who would sever have been harmed.

That's the (A) stance. — Terrapin Station

Ok, so now what? We agree to disagree.

(A) preventing harm/suffering/lack etc. is good and warranted regardless of how minor the harm/suffering/lack might be, while no pleasure metric can override the merit of preventing any level/degree of harm/suffering/lack, — Terrapin Station

Counter: You can never know how much there will be, why take the chance? If you predict wrong? Even if you think it is a low chance, is that worth it for the collateral damage?

Also, what's the point of even causing a little harm to someone who doesn't need it? What even constitutes little harm? Maybe you are the golden god and don't go through annoyances large and small throughout the day, but even minor annoyances don't need to be created for someone. Your threshold for creating harm for someone is just higher than mine. We will always disagree then.

Also, you didn't seem to answer the question about you always being in disagreeable mode. Is there ever agreement with you or do will you always focus on what is the difference. I'd just like to know so I know what to expect from these discussions with you.

I'm pretty sure I pointed out before that antinatalism doesn't work very well, from the perspective of arguing for it, if one doesn't assume some sort of objective morality. — Terrapin Station

Are you always on disagreeable mode? I'm trying to reconcile the fact that the basis for axiological considerations in morality are hard to prove one way or the other. Yes, like most moralities, it starts with an idea (coming into existence is a harm, and thus people should not procreate). If you don't think harm is sufficiently bad enough a reason to prevent birth, it will not convince you. If you are inclined to think that indeed preventing harm is good, and that preventing pleasure is not bad, then you will agree with Benatar's version of antinatalism. Perhaps someone who did not consider this idea before about preventing harm and preventing pleasure would agree with Benatar. However, if someone does not think preventing harm is good, then I cannot do much else to convince you. Only if you think preventing harm is good (especially in the situation of someone not being born yet), would you agree with this argument.

Not that I advocate a "principle"-oriented approach to morality, anyway. I think that tends to lead to absurdities instead. — Terrapin Station

That's fine, but I am giving you the reasonings for antinatalism. You can choose to agree with the principles are not as they are laid out. I think it is similar to veganism. They can lay out their reasons and you can agree or disagree. Similar to veganism, since this is on the fringe of beliefs in society at large, no one should force the view on anyone through force or legislation. Rather, like other beliefs in the larger society, it should be laid out and you can decide from there. Rarely does any philosophical argument have a slam dunk case. You don't automatically say "Yes, Socrates.. you are the golden god of reason and logic.. I shall now change my ways" when hearing an argument. It usually accord or doesn't accord with your sensibilities. Perhaps it is objectively true.. I wouldn't be able to prove it to you but that is an epistemological issue. How do I prove to you that harm is the basis for morality? It's pretty much where we have to depart ways.

This is a good question. I think the justifications for the original axiological settings get murky. Some use "intuition", for example.

Harm seems to me a good place to start for moral considerations. Causing harm seems to be bad to do in general. You can counter that sometimes it is needed. I can then use Benatar's argument to say that there is a difference in moral considerations for those who already exist and those who don't exist yet. The threshold for causing harm is much lower for those who don't exist yet. Since no on exists that needs there to be harm, why cause someone to experience harm when they didn't exist in the first place to experience it?

I don't think it's at all clear that most people have adversity as their dominant experience or that makes them miserable, etc. — Terrapin Station

If you look at my last paragraph you'll see that I said it is a difference in values between the antinatalist and pro-birth position. If someone does not exist and there will be adversity- anitnatalists think creating adversity for someone that didn't need to take place, is an unnecessary and harmful step to take. The fact that it is on behalf of another person makes it more egregious (and quite arrogant). The imperfect (but still important) other reason is the amount of adversity that was envisioned. The parent might think only a little flaw will ensue (like your artist example), when in fact more adversity than was anticipated might ensue instead. You don't know that outcome of how much adversity will be faced.

Thus the axiological position is that causing any adversity for someone (when it is not needed), is bad.

The second axiological position is that you are causing this adversity for someone else.

The imperfect secondary consideration is that since life presents unknown outcomes for each individual as to how much adversity they will face, it compounds the original axiological position.

Feel free to provide me with an argument or a thought experiment for why Benetar's asymmetry is more intuitive than P1 in your opinion if you have one though. — TheHedoMinimalist

Benatar's asymmetry is based on the idea that preventing harm is always good even if there is no actual person, where preventing pleasure is neither good nor bad (neutral) if there is no actual person. Pleasure just seems to not have moral precedent- it revolves around preventing harm more than prompting pleasure. Perhaps in a universe with 0 chance of harm, prompting pleasure would become the moral imperative. In a world where there is always some non-trivial harm, preventing harm is more important.

It is well known that life presents adversity. To have a child knowing that adversity exists would lead to the idea that you know your child will face adversity. This is doing a several things:
1) It puts adversity at a premium. Adversity is valued more than preventing harm. This to me seems odd.

2) It makes the decision for a future person that adversity should be something that should be experienced. This to me seems odd.

3) It ignores collateral damage. That the child will endure a type of adversity that is more than what the parents would have envisioned (not that any amount of creating adversity for a new person is justified, so this is kind of an imperfect version of the original idea that causing adversity when there was none previously is not good in the first place).

There is an assumption that life carries with it the value of experience itself. Going through this "gauntlet" of experience is somehow good for the individual. It is a quasi-religious idea but fails when compared to the idea that there is no writ-large universal principle that experience is something that needs to be had by individuals. Why do individuals have to experience the gauntlet of life in the first place, when prior to birth, there was no actual person who needed anything, good or bad? Why does a person have to go through the slings and arrows of existence in the first place? This is especially pertinent when harm is in the picture. Our known existence has harm. Bringing someone into a harmful existence because experience or adversity is seen as good, seems to be a difference in what values are primary in ethical considerations of birth. Adversity causes intentional harm to an individual, perhaps to create a person that will become stronger and more adept from the experiences. This to me doesn't seem necessary to do for someone else.

Long story short, the difference comes down to a difference in values for a future person. The antinatalist puts the value of prevention of harm above all else. The pro-birth (or limited pro-birth) position is that adversity and experiencing in general are more important than other considerations, even preventing harm.

So, coping is the key here? How does Schopenhauer help you cope with adversity? I'm basically astonished at how one can still carry on living with such a state of mind that Schopenhauer puts you in? — Wallows

Here's some quotes from his in the Wisdom of Life https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/wisdom/complete.html#chapter1:

...So arises an inclination to suicide, which even the most trivial unpleasantness may actually bring about; nay, when the tendency attains its worst form, it may be occasioned by nothing in particular, but a man may resolve to put an end to his existence, simply because he is permanently unhappy, and then coolly and firmly carry out his determination; as may be seen by the way in which the sufferer, when placed under supervision, as he usually is, eagerly waits to seize the first unguarded moment, when, without a shudder, without a struggle or recoil, he may use the now natural and welcome means of effecting his release.6 Even the healthiest, perhaps even the most cheerful man, may resolve upon death under certain circumstances; when, for instance, his sufferings, or his fears of some inevitable misfortune, reach such a pitch as to outweigh the terrors of death. The only difference lies in the degree of suffering necessary to bring about the fatal act, a degree which will be high in the case of a cheerful, and low in that of a gloomy man. The greater the melancholy, the lower need the degree be; in the end, it may even sink to zero. But if a man is cheerful, and his spirits are supported by good health, it requires a high degree of suffering to make him lay hands upon himself. There are countless steps in the scale between the two extremes of suicide, the suicide which springs merely from a morbid intensification of innate gloom, and the suicide of the healthy and cheerful man, who has entirely objective grounds for putting an end to his existence.

A dull mind is, as a rule, associated with dull sensibilities, nerves which no stimulus can affect, a temperament, in short, which does not feel pain or anxiety very much, however great or terrible it may be. Now, intellectual dullness is at the bottom of that vacuity of soul which is stamped on so many faces, a state of mind which betrays itself by a constant and lively attention to all the trivial circumstances in the external world. This is the true source of boredom — a continual panting after excitement, in order to have a pretext for giving the mind and spirits something to occupy them. The kind of things people choose for this purpose shows that they are not very particular, as witness the miserable pastimes they have recourse to, and their ideas of social pleasure and conversation: or again, the number of people who gossip on the doorstep or gape out of the window. It is mainly because of this inner vacuity of soul that people go in quest of society, diversion, amusement, luxury of every sort, which lead many to extravagance and misery. Nothing is so good a protection against such misery as inward wealth, the wealth of the mind, because the greater it grows, the less room it leaves for boredom. The inexhaustible activity of thought! Finding ever new material to work upon in the multifarious phenomena of self and nature, and able and ready to form new combinations of them — there you have something that invigorates the mind, and apart from moments of relaxation, sets it far above the reach of boredom.

But, on the other hand, this high degree of intelligence is rooted in a high degree of susceptibility, greater strength of will, greater passionateness; and from the union of these qualities comes an increased capacity for emotion, an enhanced sensibility to all mental and even bodily pain, greater impatience of obstacles, greater resentment of interruption; — all of which tendencies are augmented by the power of the imagination, the vivid character of the whole range of thought, including what is disagreeable. This applies, in various degrees, to every step in the long scale of mental power, from the veriest dunce to the greatest genius that ever lived. Therefore the nearer anyone is, either from a subjective or from an objective point of view, to one of those sources of suffering in human life, the farther he is from the other. And so a man’s natural bent will lead him to make his objective world conform to his subjective as much as possible; that is to say, he will take the greatest measures against that form of suffering to which he is most liable. The wise man will, above all, strive after freedom from pain and annoyance, quiet and leisure, consequently a tranquil, modest life, with as few encounters as may be; and so, after a little experience of his so-called fellowmen, he will elect to live in retirement, or even, if he is a man of great intellect, in solitude. For the more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people — the less, indeed, other people can be to him. This is why a high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial. True, if quality of intellect could be made up for by quantity, it might be worth while to live even in the great world; but unfortunately, a hundred...
-Schopenhauer

What is GD symbology? — Noah Te Stroete

Grateful Dead

If you accept that P2 is true, then you would either have to say that P1 is false or reject Benetar's asymmetry. I chose to reject Benetar's asymmetry because I don't think that the presence of desire or deprivational suffering could fully explain why it is bad to have an absence of pleasure. — TheHedoMinimalist

The X Beings don't experience pleasure or get deprived of it. This is not good or bad. The humans experience pleasure, this is good. The non-existent potential child doesn't experience pleasure or get deprived of it, this is not good or bad.

What would you like input on? Dealing with mental illness is one of the harms of being alive. Like most other things in life, in order to get better you will probably have to put energy into short-term painful therapy to get the benefit of long-term relief. That could be very daunting. However, nothing in life is meant to be easy. Rather, we seem programmed to take on projects of various lengths so we can overcome them and strengthen our minds or bodies. Now, as you know, I think this is not something that should be foisted upon a new individual. I don't think prioritizing adversity is good to do to another person, if that person does not exist yet. But once born, there is no choice. You must learn to overcome adversity. Sometimes it is just dealing with the stress by existing through it.

My question goes as follows: is it the case that, even if there's no one experiencing negative emotion or having desires violated because of an absence of pleasure, an absence of pleasure in a being could still be called a deprivation and the presence of that deprivation in a being is still a bad thing? Is the mere fact that it could be called a deprivation make the supposed outcome bad and why? — TheHedoMinimalist

If no negative states were attached to the deprivation then the outcome is not bad. I would just like to see a human with no negative states due to deprivation. Perhaps these are the mystical enlightened ones. Buddhism is based on lessening attachment to desire. Schopenhauer's only salvation was to become an austere ascetic and possibly die due to starvation without care.

So you are describing a non human situation? Is it relevant?

You pick the outcome and not the cause for rhetorical purposes. But if we are going to go down this absurd route between a situation where the only thing that exists in the universe is that someone feels the discomfort of dirty clothes and has to do laundry or non-existence.. then non-existence is still the correct choice as no lack was created.

Right, so in my view,
Yep moral considerations are all views with justifications, keep that in mind. Vegans also think meat eating is morally wrong, but that's just their view, man.

lack is not at all sufficient for moral concern. "Why create situations of lack" is a morally null question, because creating situations of lack is not sufficient for moral concern.
And I disagree as I think a lack is a negative.

You're arguing that it is sufficient for moral concern. So I'm asking you on the basis of what is it sufficient for moral concern? — Terrapin Station

I just told you- creating situations of lack, and more strongly, adversity for something when there was nothing there to originally experience lack or adversity is sufficient for moral concern. To make something experience a situation of lack when there need not be lack, is wrong. It is prioritizing adversity or overcoming which I also think is wrong to do for others.

What does the concept of thresholds have to do with why suffering period, under the earlier definition, so that needing to do laundry, needing to clean house, etc. count as suffering, is worth moral concern? — Terrapin Station

It represents having a lack. Why create situations of lack, (and adversity) for something that doesn't need to? To put a put a premium on adversity or responsibility or strength through activity? Psst.. not strong enough reasons to pass the threshold of STARTING a life. In fact its creating a negative situation where there was none.

Yes I wrote a response focusing on thresholds for starting life vs. continuing life.

Um, did you read anything else? Ugh, I'm disappointed you associate your avatar with GD symbology. Shame.

I didn't say I had any problem with calling it suffering. I said that if it's suffering, then suffering isn't at all sufficient for moral concerns. — Terrapin Station

Sure it is, and one clever part of Benatar's argument is that the different thresholds in starting a life and continuing a life. I would take the hard stance that in matters of starting a life, just the structural suffering alone is enough to prevent birth. However, I don't think it is necessarily a threshold to discontinue life once born. Now, if we combine the fact that life is structural suffering AND contingent suffering (your more familiar harms based on circumstances of life), then the decision of whether to start a life is indeed weighted against birth. To go further, to provide a gauntlet of burdens to overcome, to provide pain in order to get stronger, to something that didn't exist to need to get strong is also morally suspect. As Bentar's example of getting sick and recovering fast versus never getting sick. Just because you have the ability to recover fast does not negate that it was better to never get sick. This is all the more so if no one existed in the first place to NEED to get sick (in order to recover). It would be a reckless and arbitrary value of wanting to see another person go through adversity. Adversity is then put as a premium above suffering, which I have many qualms with in terms of playing with people's lives, the arrogance of making someone else go through with this for your weighted preference for seeing someone struggle through adversity, and the collateral damage of the child going through more than a socially-approved form adversity. As I said earlier: Sure, if you already exist and have to endure certain forms of suffering to get to a "better place" mentally/socially/physically fine, but to CREATE a situation so that someone has to go through this, is suspect to me. There is too much collateral damage, too much assumptions of the existent on what the new person needs, wants, etc. In other words, there is a lot of arrogance in this idea of making people go through the gauntlet of life because that is just something someone wants to see carried out. Damn Nietzsche, damn the idea that people have to be born over and over to suffer through existence for its own sake! It is middle-class respectable savagery masquerading as pragmatic gentleman's morality.

If you think that everyone is regularly suffering, and that suffering includes things like needing to do laundry, then suffering isn't something to be concerned with on any moral level. Some subset of suffering might be something to be concerned with, but suffering in general wouldn't be. — Terrapin Station

It isn't the activities that result from the suffering, it is the lack that is there in the first place. It is not an immediate physical pain. It is your willing animal nature. Yes, it is baked into the definition of being an animal, so the subtly probably goes above your head as to how lack equates with suffering. Not all concepts of suffering are of the course physical/immediate kind that you think only justifies moral categorizing.

1. It means that the harm of coming into existence extends far beyond the presence of bad things. The infinite deprivation of good things in life is also an infinite harm relative to non-existence. For example, there is an infinite amount of pleasure that I am deprived of(because I cannot experience an eternal orgasm, for example) and that is bad only because I am a being who is deprived of that pleasure. This seems highly counterintuitive to me.

2. It means that bringing a being into existence that can be deprived of some good things in life but is inflicted with no bad things in life would still be harmful. That is because the deprivation of pleasure is bad compared to the case of nonexistence where there's no one deprived and therefore no one harmed by the absence of pleasure. To me, this is even more counterintuitive than thinking that X beings are not worse off than humans by not being able to experience pleasure. It implies that bringing a child into existence is bad even if that child experiences nothing bad but simply doesn't have as many good things in life as she could have. — TheHedoMinimalist

You did a great job bridging utilitarian antinatalism with philosophical pessimism/structural antinatalism. Structural antinatalists (like myself) would say that life is always suffering due to the deprivation of desires and wants which are endless. Satisfaction is short-lived, and similar to Heraclitus' idea that all is flux, we are never in a state of complete satisfaction, but always thrown upon the world in the pendulum swing of NOW needing to work to survive, NOW needing to maintain comfort levels (do laundry, clean our house, etc.), NOW needing to entertain our complex brains (we get bored and have to always look for more novelty, more flow states, etc. etc.). Indeed, even the pleasures may not really be so fully good as the flip side is the deprivation that it reveals in the human condition.

Your scenario about X beings is that they don't feel pleasure. Well, this follows under Benatar's idea that if something already exists, then it is best that they can maximize pleasure. Hence, these X beings would be better off with pleasure, even if they can't. For a being that does not exist, but just a potential, the situation changes. There is no one actually existing that would be better off. In fact, to take it to its furthest reach, if no pleasure ever existed for anyone in the universe, it would not be bad (though it would not necessarily be good either, but neutral). However, that a scenario can occur where someone could have incurred suffering, but was prevented from doing so, is always good. Thus, your thought experiment falls right into Benatar's asymmetry.

That has nothing to do with the idea of anyone being deprived of anything. — Terrapin Station

I'm assuming you were talking about the idea of antinatalism and that you are anti-anatinatalism because birth brings more experiences of pleasure and we should maximize this apparently. That seems to be your stance. Hence, I point to Benatar's idea that the preventing of pleasure is not bad if there is no one there to be deprived. Conversely, there is no obligation to bring about pleasure if no one exists in the first place. There does seem to be an obligation to prevent suffering though.

Another note I'd like to make is that having people so that they can suffer in some edifying way that is deemed appropriate by the parent seems also off to me. No one who doesn't already exist, needs to be born to experience some society-approved form of suffering. And THIS is why I pointed to Benatar's distinction between life worth continuing vs. a life worth starting. Sure, if you already exist and have to endure certain forms of suffering to get to a "better place" mentally/socially/physically fine, but to CREATE a situation so that someone has to go through this, is suspect to me. There is too much collateral damage, too much assumptions of the existent on what the new person needs, wants, etc. In other words, there is a lot of arrogance in this idea of making people go through the gauntlet of life because that is just something someone wants to see carried out. Damn Nietzsche, damn the idea that people have to be born over and over to suffer through existence for its own sake! It is middle-class respectable savagery masquerading as pragmatic gentleman's morality.

But Benatar takes into account outcomes. What is the outcome of pleasure being prevented (and no one there to be deprived of it?). What is the outcome of preventing suffering (even if there is no one there to be deprived of it?). Moral intuition might say, the "regrettable" loss of pleasure, for something that did not even exist to know of its deprivation is trivially sad, where the prevention of suffering is non-trivially good. You should also understand that Benatar seems to split morality into two modalities- lives worth continuing and lives worth starting. Here is how he puts it:

The expression ‘a life worth living’ is ambiguous between ‘a life
worth continuing’—let us call this the present-life sense—and ‘a life
worth starting’—let us call this the future-life sense.¹² ‘A life worth
continuing’, like ‘a life not worth continuing’, are judgements
one can make about an already existent person. ‘A life worth
starting’, like ‘a life not worth starting’, are judgements one can
make about a potential but non-existent being. Now the problem
is that a number of people have employed the present-life sense
and applied it to future-life cases,¹³ which are quite different. When
they distinguish between impairments that make a life not worth
living and impairments that, though severe, are not so bad as to
make life not worth living, they are making the judgements in
the present-life cases. Those lives not worth living are those that
would not be worth continuing. Similarly, those lives worth living
are those that are worth continuing. But the problem is that these
notions are then applied to future-life cases.¹⁴ In this way, we are
led to make judgements about future-life cases by the standards of
present-life cases.
However, quite different standards apply in the two kinds of
case. The judgement that an impairment is so bad that it makes life
not worth continuing is usually made at a much higher threshold
than the judgement that an impairment is sufficiently bad to make
life not worth beginning. That is to say, if a life is not worth
continuing, a fortiori it is not worth beginning. It does not follow,
however, that if a life is worth continuing it is worth beginning or
that if it is not worth beginning it would not be worth continuing.
For instance, while most people think that living life without a limb
does not make life so bad that it is worth ending, most (of the
same) people also think that it is better not to bring into existence
somebody who will lack a limb. We require stronger justification
for ending a life than for not starting one.¹⁵
We are now in a position to understand how it might be preferable
not to begin a life worth living. — Benatar p 22-24

P1: The presence of pleasure in human beings is an advantage over the absence of pleasure in X Beings. — TheHedoMinimalist

The difference being that we are not talking about X beings that already exist, but no being at all. It can be regrettable for X beings that they don't feel pleasure, because they exist and they are being deprived of something. However, even this is a moot point in your scenario as it seems like an impossibility they can derive pleasure in the first place, so it is not even regrettable, just an oddity of nature that happens.

Rather, Benatar's scenario is simply that preventing pleasure is not bad, if no actual person is deprived of it. The potential kids you or I won't have are not suffering from prevention of pleasure. The only scenario where someone would suffer from prevention of pleasure, is one where an actual person existed who was prevented (i.e. a person-dependent scenario). That is his main idea. However, preventing harmful experiences don't need to be person-dependent. That someone could have existed that would have suffered but was prevented from doing so is good, independent of whether an actual person can be identified to have benefited from this.

To me, the Martian argument is his most revealing of his negative utilitarianism. It seems his negative utilitarianism comes from the intuition that for a hypothetical person to not experience pleasure, is not something we really regret.. (If we do it would be more post-facto in a philosophy forum like this simply to prove others wrong..in other words it would be intellectually falsifying how we really feel to make point). However, it does seem that we intuitively are indignant at the idea that someone (who does not exist but has a potential to) can be born into great suffering.

I have some better quotes to work off of here:
First, the asymmetry between (3) and (4) is the best explanation
for the view that while there is a duty to avoid bringing suffering
people into existence, there is no duty to bring happy people into
being. In other words, the reason why we think that there is a duty
not to bring suffering people into existence is that the presence of
this suffering would be bad (for the sufferers) and the absence of
the suffering is good (even though there is nobody to enjoy the
absence of suffering). In contrast to this, we think that there is no
duty to bring happy people into existence because while their pleasure would be good for them, its absence would not be bad for them
(given that there would be nobody who would be deprived of it).

There is a second support for my claim about the asymmetry
between (3) and (4). Whereas it is strange (if not incoherent) to give
as a reason for having a child that the child one has will thereby be
benefited,²⁷ it is not strange to cite a potential child’s interests as
a basis for avoiding bringing a child into existence. If having children were done for the purpose of thereby benefiting those children, then there would be greater moral reason for at least many
people to have more children. In contrast to this, our concern for
the welfare of potential children who would suffer is a sound basis
for deciding not to have the child. If absent pleasures were bad irrespective of whether they were bad for anybody, then having children for their own sakes would not be odd. And if it were not the
case that absent pains are good even where they are not good for
anybody, then we could not say that it would be good to avoid
bringing suffering children into existence.

Thirdly, support for the asymmetry between (3) and (4) can be
drawn from a related asymmetry, this time in our retrospective
judgements. Bringing people into existence as well as failing to
bring people into existence can be regretted. However, only
bringing people into existence can be regretted for the sake of
the person whose existence was contingent on our decision. This
is not because those who are not brought into existence are
indeterminate. Instead it is because they never exist. We can
regret, for the sake of an indeterminate but existent person that a
benefit was not bestowed on him or her, but we cannot regret, for
the sake of somebody who never exists and thus cannot thereby be
deprived, a good that this never existent person never experiences.
One might grieve about not having had children, but not because
the children that one could have had have been deprived of
existence. Remorse about not having children is remorse for
ourselves—sorrow about having missed childbearing and childrearing experiences. However, we do regret having brought into
existence a child with an unhappy life, and we regret it for the
child’s sake, even if also for our own sakes. The reason why we do
not lament our failure to bring somebody into existence is because
absent pleasures are not bad.

Finally, support for the asymmetry between (3) and (4) can be
found in the asymmetrical judgements about (a) (distant) suffering
and (b) uninhabited portions of the earth or the universe. Whereas, at least when we think of them, we rightly are sad for inhabitants of a foreign land whose lives are characterized by suffering,
when we hear that some island is unpopulated, we are not similarly
sad for the happy people who, had they existed, would have populated this island. Similarly, nobody really mourns for those who
do not exist on Mars, feeling sorry for potential such beings that
they cannot enjoy life.²⁸ Yet, if we knew that there were sentient
life on Mars but that Martians were suffering, we would regret this
for them. The claim here need not (but could) be the strong one
that we would regret their very existence. The fact that we would
regret the suffering within their life is sufficient to support the asymmetry I am defending. The point is that we regret suffering but not
the absent pleasures of those who could have existed. — Benatar p 32-35

A lot of the intuition of why preventing pain is always good, where preventing good is neutral comes from this type of thought experiment:

To this it might be objected that ‘good’ is an advantage over ‘not
bad’ because a pleasurable sensation is better than a neutral state.
The mistake underlying this objection, however, is that it treats
the absence of pleasure in Scenario B as though it were akin to the
absence of pleasure in Scenario A—a possibility not reflected in
my matrix, but which is implicit in () of my original description
of asymmetry. There I said that the absence of pleasure is not bad
unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation. The
implication here is that where an absent pleasure is a deprivation
it is bad. Now, obviously, when I say that it is bad, I do not mean
that it is bad in the same way that the presence of pain is bad.³⁰
What is meant is that the absent pleasure is relatively (rather than
intrinsically) bad. In other words, it is worse than the presence
of pleasure. But that is because X exists in Scenario A. It would
have been better had X had the pleasure of which he is deprived.
Instead of a pleasurable mental state, X has a neutral state. Absent
pleasures in Scenario B, by contrast, are not neutral states of some
person. They are no states of a person at all. Although the pleasures
in A are better than the absent pleasures in A, the pleasures in A are
not better than the absent pleasures in B.
The point may be made another way. Just as I am not talking about intrinsic badness when I say that absent pleasures that
deprive are bad, so I am not speaking about intrinsic ‘not badness’—neutrality—when I speak about absent pleasures that do
not deprive. Just as absent pleasures that do deprive are ‘bad’ in the sense of ‘worse’, so absent pleasures that do not deprive are
‘not bad’ in the sense of ‘not worse’. They are not worse than the
presence of pleasures. It follows that the presence of pleasures is
not better, and therefore that the presence of pleasures is not an
advantage over absent pleasures that do not deprive.
Some people have difficulty understanding how () is not an
advantage over (). They should consider an analogy which, because it involves the comparison of two existent people is unlike the
comparison between existence and non-existence in this way, but
which nonetheless may be instructive. S (Sick) is prone to regular
bouts of illness. Fortunately for him, he is also so constituted that he
recovers quickly. H (Healthy) lacks the capacity for quick recovery,
but he never gets sick. It is bad for S that he gets sick and it is good
for him that he recovers quickly. It is good that H never gets sick,
but it is not bad that he lacks the capacity to heal speedily. The
capacity for quick recovery, although a good for S, is not a real
advantage over H. This is because the absence of that capacity is
not bad for H. This, in turn, is because the absence of that capacity
is not a deprivation for H. H is not worse off than he would have
been had he had the recuperative powers of S. S is not better off
than H in any way, even though S is better off than he himself
would have been had he lacked the capacity for rapid recovery.
It might be objected that the analogy is tendentious. It is obvious that it is better to be Healthy than to be Sick. The objection
is that if I treat these as analogies for never existing and existing
respectively, then I bias the discussion toward my favoured conclusion. But the problem with this objection, if it is taken alone, is that
it could be levelled at all analogies. The point of an analogy is to
find a case (such as H and S) where matters are clear and thereby
to shed some light on a disputed case (such as Scenarios A and B in
Fig. .). Tendentiousness, then, is not the core issue. Instead, the
real question is whether or not the analogy is a good one.
One reason why it might be thought not to be a good analogy is
that whereas pleasure (in Fig. .) is an intrinsic good, the capacityfor quick recovery is but an instrumental good. It might be argued
further that it would be impossible to provide an analogy involving
two existing people (such as H and S) that could show one of the
people not to be disadvantaged by lacking some intrinsic good that
the other has. Since the only unambiguous cases of an actual person lacking a good and not thereby being disadvantaged are cases
involving instrumental goods, the difference between intrinsic and
instrumental goods might be thought to be relevant.
This, however, is unconvincing, because there is a deeper
explanation of why absent intrinsic goods could always be thought
to be bad in analogies involving only existing people. Given that
these people exist, the absence of any intrinsic good could always
be thought to constitute a deprivation for them. In analogies
that compare two existing people the only way to simulate the
absence of deprivation is by considering instrumental goods.³¹
Because () and () make it explicit that the presence or absence of
deprivation is crucial, it seems entirely fair that the analogy should
test this feature and can ignore the differences between intrinsic
and instrumental goods.
Notice, in any event, that the analogy need not be read as proving that quadrant () is good and that quadrant () is not bad. That
asymmetry was established in the previous section. Instead, the
analogy could be interpreted as showing how, given the asymmetry, () is not an advantage over (), whereas () is a disadvantage relative to (). It would thereby show that Scenario B is
preferable to Scenario A.
We can ascertain the relative advantages and disadvantages of
existence and non-existence in another way, still in my original
matrix, but by comparing () with () and () with (). There arebenefits both to existing and non-existing. It is good that existers
enjoy their pleasures. It is also good that pains are avoided through
non-existence. However, that is only part of the picture. Because
there is nothing bad about never coming into existence, but there is
something bad about coming into existence, it seems that all things
considered non-existence is preferable.
One of the realizations which emerges from some of the
reflections so far is that the cost-benefit analysis of the cheerful—whereby one weighs up () the pleasures of life against () the
evils—is unconvincing as a comparison between the desirability of
existence and never existing. The analysis of the cheerful is mistaken for a number of reasons:
First, it makes the wrong comparison. If we want to determine
whether non-existence is preferable to existence, or vice versa,
then we must compare the left- and the right-hand sides of the
diagram, which represent the alternative scenarios in which X
exists and in which X never exists. Comparing the upper and the
lower quadrants on the left does not tell us whether Scenario A
is better than Scenario B or vice versa. That is unless quadrants
() and () are rendered irrelevant. One way in which that would
be so is if they were both valued as ‘zero’. On this assumption A
can be thought to be better than B if () is greater than (), or to
put it another way, if () minus () is greater than zero. But this
poses a second problem. To value quadrants () and () at zero is
to attach no positive value to () and this is incompatible with the
asymmetry for which I have argued. (It would be to adopt the
symmetry of Fig. ..)
Another problem with calculating whether A or B is better by
looking only at () and (), subtracting the former from the latter, is
that it seems to ignore the difference, mentioned earlier, between
a ‘life worth starting’ and a ‘life worth continuing’. The cheerful
tell us that existence is better than non-existence if () is greater
than (). But what is meant by ‘non-existence’ here? Does it mean
‘never existing’ or ‘ceasing to exist’? Those who look only at () and() do not seem to be distinguishing between never existing and
ceasing to exist. For them, a life is worth living (that is, both
starting and continuing) if () is greater than (), otherwise it is
not worth living (that is, neither worth starting nor continuing).
The problem with this, I have already argued, is that there is good
reason to distinguish between them. For a life to be not worth
continuing, it must be worse than it need be for it not to be
worth starting.³² Those who consider not only Scenario A but also
Scenario B clearly are considering which lives are worth starting.
To determine which lives are worth continuing, Scenario A would
have to be compared with a third scenario, in which X ceases
to exist.³³
Finally, the quality of a life is not determined simply by subtracting the bad from the good. As I shall show in the first section of the
next chapter, assessing the quality of a life is much more complicated than this.
Now some people might accept the asymmetry represented in
Figure ., agree that we need to compare Scenario A with Scenario B, but deny that this leads to the conclusion that B is always
preferable to A—that is, deny that coming into existence is always
a harm. The argument is that we must assign positive or negative
(or neutral) values to each of the quadrants, and that if we assign
them in what those advancing this view take to be the most reasonable way, we find that coming into existence is sometimes preferable (see Fig. .).³⁴ — Benatar

The last two points may very well be how the author feels--that the absence of pain is good and the absence of pleasure is not bad, but that's all it is. How the author feels about each. — Terrapin Station

So this is precisely why its an asymmetry. Pleasure is only good as person-dependent, no pain is good is person independent. Benetar is pretty clever and he anticipates arguments like yours right after here:

Now it might be asked how the absence of pain could be good if
that good is not enjoyed by anybody. Absent pain, it might be said,
cannot be good for anybody, if nobody exists for whom it can be
good. This, however, is to dismiss (3) too quickly.
The judgement made in (3) is made with reference to the (potential)
interests of a person who either does or does not exist. To this it might be objected that because (3) is part of the scenario under
which this person never exists, (3) cannot say anything about an
existing person. This objection would be mistaken because (3) can
say something about a counterfactual case in which a person who
does actually exist never did exist. Of the pain of an existing person,
(3) says that the absence of this pain would have been good even if
this could only have been achieved by the absence of the person
who now suffers it. In other words, judged in terms of the interests
of a person who now exists, the absence of the pain would have
been good even though this person would then not have existed.
Consider next what (3) says of the absent pain of one who never
exists—of pain, the absence of which is ensured by not making
a potential person actual. Claim (3) says that this absence is good
when judged in terms of the interests of the person who would
otherwise have existed. We may not know who that person would
have been, but we can still say that whoever that person would
have been, the avoidance of his or her pains is good when judged
in terms of his or her potential interests. If there is any (obviously
loose) sense in which the absent pain is good for the person who
could have existed but does not exist, this is it. Clearly (3) does not
entail the absurd literal claim that there is some actual person for
whom the absent pain is good.²³ — Benatarp. 40

That comment makes no sense to me. It only matters to whom that pain was prevented? Mattering can't be "to no one." Mattering is always to someone. — Terrapin Station

You have to look at the argument as a whole.

However, this conclusion does not follow. This is because there is a
crucial difference between harms (such as pains) and benefits (such
as pleasures) which entails that existence has no advantage over,
but does have disadvantages relative to, non-existence.²² Consider
pains and pleasures as exemplars of harms and benefits. It is uncontroversial to say that
() the presence of pain is bad,
and that
() the presence of pleasure is good.
However, such a symmetrical evaluation does not seem to apply
to the absence of pain and pleasure, for it strikes me as true that
() the absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed
by anyone,
whereas
() the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody
for whom this absence is a deprivation. — The Harm of Coming into Existence p. 30

But, I couldn't find any textual evidence that he thinks the absence of pain is only relatively rather than intrinsically good. I assume that he judges both the absence of pain and the absence of pleasure both as only relatively good and not bad respectively. Otherwise, he would be judging this argument by 2 different standards and I don't recall him claiming that the absence of pain is intrinsically good. I honestly wish Benetar would make his arguments a little more clear thou lol. — TheHedoMinimalist

Ok, so the contention is over the use of absolute/relative or intrinsic/relative. The point that I think we both agree he is saying is that preventing pleasure only matters for those who already exit to be deprived; it is neutral to prevent pleasure for something that cannot be deprived (yet). Conversely in his argument, preventing pain is always good, even if there was no one there to witness this. Unlike preventing pleasure which is neutral in respects to no one existing, preventing pain is good, even if there is no one existing to know pain was prevented.

This is why I don't base any ethical stance on "harm" per se. Lots of things that people can consider "harm" are things that I don't feel merit any moral action whatsoever. — Terrapin Station

But then, that's your judgement, not the person you would be creating's judgement. Even if probability was a factor (high, low, what have you), preventing pleasure ONLY matters for someone who is deprived of it (that was already in existence), not for those who don't exist. It is neutral otherwise to prevent pleasure where there could have been. It ONLY matters that pain was prevented (and this doesn't matter if there is no actual person to know this). That is the negative utilitarian stance. Disagree with it, fine, but it has its logic.

I want to point out first that your position seems different to that of David Benetar. Benetar has stated explicitly that his main axiological asymmetry is "axiological" rather than metaphysical(read his book or listen to his discussion with Sam Harris for more details). He also states in his book that the absence of pain is not literarily or absolutely good in his asymmetry. We are not deriving utility in our universe from all the beings that were never born, that is to say. Also, I don't understand how you stances could be a strong "metaphysical" stance since metaphysics refers to the study of what there is out there. Any metaphysical claim should begin with something like "There is". — TheHedoMinimalist

I don't have the book with me. I used to have it but no longer in my possession. If you have an online source, please let me know. From what I gather, preventing bad is intrinsically good. The reason I say this is that he says this obtains sub specie aeternitatis which is taking an objective view of preventing bad. That is why I say it is absolute- it is good no matter if there is a person there to experience the prevention of bad or not. The fact that bad was prevented is good- even if there is no one there to witness this. However, the same does not seem to obtain for preventing good. Preventing good, is only bad if there is someone who is there to experience this deprivation, or more specifically, there is someone there who may be deprived of good. If there is no specific person who knows they are deprived of good, this is not bad, but neutral. This to me means that preventing good is simply instrumentally bad (only if someone is alive to be deprived, but neutral otherwise), while preventing harm is absolutely good (whether someone exists to know or not, preventing harm is always good).

I use pleasure as an exemplar here because it is something that we have the greatest reason to think is intrinsically valuable. I'm aware that many negative utilitarians might argue that pleasure is only neutral intrinsically and it's only relatively good(compared to experiencing pain or neutral emotion). — TheHedoMinimalist

The weight is on the negative. What is good is that painful experiences did not occur for an individual. Pleasurable experiences not occurring does not hurt anyone, nor would anyone know they are missing out. There is an epistemological element to the pleasurable experiences but not for the painful ones. In other words, it is absolutely good that painful experiences were avoided. This is a strong metaphysical stance- a universe with the least pain is better off. A universe with no pleasurable experiences, is not bad, especially if the people that would have had pleasurable experiences do not know they are deprived of anything. Further, a universe with the least pain is certainly better in a universe where the people who were to experience pleasure otherwise if they were born, did not know they were deprived of any good

Then it's the baptism thing.

Something to do with proper names being different.

Hey solved your problems

Fine just add in epigenetics and the physical properties that make them unique. This wouldn’t change it much. Also I meant rigid designator, not definite description. It makes sense. In all possible worlds, that person would be that person and no one else.