• schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Methinks the assumption of asymmetry is simply false. See https://www.academia.edu/38291449/How_to_Reject_Benatars_Asymmetry_ArgumentMethinks

    You have to at least summarize the arguments. Even then, just looking on the internet for an anti- antinatalist paper is not really participating. Do you have your own thoughts besides these little quips? I wanted to provide you a background, not a provide a basis to send links to each other.
  • Methinks
    11


    Methinks (along the lines of the paper I linked to, on the assumption more detail might interest you) that Benatar's antinatalism rests on a fallacious rejection of the commonsense symmetry I mentioned several posts ago: if the absence of pain is good, then the absence of pleasure is bad.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    if the absence of pain is good, then the absence of pleasure is bad.Methinks

    Benatar's asymmetry can also be considered based on "common sense". For example, if you knew that aliens on a distant planet were being enslaved and tortured (in a relatively human way of pain), you may feel some pity for them. However, if this distant planet (like most others) was barren of life, you probably wouldn't shed much of a tear or feel any angst or pity or remorse for there not being life on it due to the lack of happiness that is missed. Similarly, almost no one feels pain when people across the planet are not having children to feel happiness, but they certainly have some ounce of compassion for those born into some sort of harmful condition.
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    Benatar's asymmetry can also be considered based on "common sense".schopenhauer1
    An ode to (odor of) common sense ... :wink:
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