In David Benatar's book "Better Never To Have Been The Harm of Coming Into Existence" Benatar argues for the idea that coming into existence is always a harm. Although he claims that in the end, many people will not agree with his views, Benatar offers several arguments that he uses in favor of the idea of the gradual extinction of mankind. In this paper I will be critiquing and raising an objection on an aspect of Benatar's argument that he makes in his defense of anti-natalism. Anti-natalism is the view that reproduction is often (or always) morally wrong and Benatar argues for this claim that "we ought to not reproduce."
Benatar argues that we do not have a duty to procreate and trys to make an attempt in which his arguement for this
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creates a relationship that could work between anti-natalism and religion although in my opinion this is an impossible coexistence. Throughout his book, Benatar makes references to various bible passages coming from the books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Jeremiah where the person speaking is always saying something of the sorts that it would have been better had he never been born, or that cursed is the day that he was born and brought into existence and sorrow. Benatar takes these passages and explains them in a way where he trys to demonstrate that Christianities attitude towards existence is capable of also incorporating the ideas that he believes in. Benatar then states an asymmetrical view that pleasures and pains that is benefits and harms are the parameters used to determine what a life worth living is or is not. However, Benatar's evaluation of the quality of a life and of existence has a problem as it does not allow for the possibility of an afterlife that Christians tend to believe in. From Benatar's point of view affirming that a life is not worth living and that we would be better off not to have existed is very epicurean as it seems to imply that life ends with death and there is nothing more. This belief destroys the attempt Benatar tried to pacify anti-natalism views with religious views. To Benatar, although we have a duty to not bring people that would live a miserable life into existence, we have no duty to bring about those that would live happy lives.
This view can be better explained that although there are now ways to know if someone's existence would be miserable such as someone who has sufferable cancer, or a disease at birth, there is not a way to know whether someone will have a life that is worth living. For these reasons Benatar believes that procreation is not a duty, because if one were to take a chance, one would be putting that potential person at a risk for having a worthy or unworthy life. Every possibility of accomplishment would be the same possibility of failure if we were not to come into existence thus representing the concept of the possibility of absence. When discussing the possibilities of bringing future people into existence, happiness or eudamoneia surely cannot be what should measure a life's overall worthiness. The idea that the best thing is not to be born (anti-natalism) is an impossible phrase to interpret because of the ontological absence of possibility, it is impossible to know what is better for us. This is problematic as Benatar is trying to tell us what is best for us in his book even though he is aware that we will all do what we want anyway. Benatar also faces a no subject problem because rather than explaining asymmetry as a harm or benefit in one case there is a subject that will be harmed while in the other there is no one to be harmed. If it is bad to bring someone who will seemingly have a bad or miserable life into existence, it seems that it would be good for someone who will have a good life to come into existence. There are several ways of existing and living life but only one way of not existing. The idea that if we cannot be sure of the lives we create, and if they will have a life that is not worth living, then we should just not procreate seems a bit ridiculous due to the absence of
possibilites. In this paper I have noted objections I found to Benatar's argument on how his anti-natalism views are incompatible with religion, and offered a rejection as to why asymmetry does not work due to the absence of possibility. Although Benatar's views and general arguments are thoughtful, the anti-natlism view seems flawed by nature.
In kilner’s case study “Having a baby the new-fashioned way”, present a story that can be relatable to a lot of families struggling to have a child. This is a dilemma that can be controversial and ethical in own sense. The couple that were discussed in the case study were Betty and Tom. Betty and Tom who are both in their early forties who have struggled to bear children. Dr. Ralph Linstra from Liberty University believes that “Fertility can be taken for granted”. Dr. Ralph talks about how many couples who are marriage may run into an issue of bearing a child and turn to “medical science” to fix the issue. He discusses that “God is author of life and he can open and close the womb”. That in it’s self presents how powerful God.
On September 14, 1879, Margaret Sanger was born in Corning, New York. She was the sixth child of eleven children and realized early what being part of a large family meant; just making due. Although her family was Roman Catholic both her mother and father were of Irish descent. Her mother, Anne Purcell had a sense of beauty that was expressed through and with flowers. Her father was an Irish born stonemason whose real religion was social radicalism. Her father was a free thinker and strong believer in eugenics which meant Margaret possessed some of the same values. (Sanger, Margaret) Eugenics is the belief that one race is better than a different race just because they are not like them, kind of like Hitler and the holocaust. “He expected me to be grown up at the age of ten.” (Source 4.3 page 30) Coming from a family of eleven children she did have to grow up fast. Faster than most kids should have to. She left her house as a teenager and came back when she needed to study nursing. It was during this time that Margaret worked as a maternity nurse helping in the delivery of babies to immigrant women. She saw illegal abortions, women being overwhelmed by poverty, to many children, and women dying because they had no knowledge of how to prevent one pregnancy after another. This reminded her of the fact that her own mother had eighteen pregnancies, eleven children, and died at the age of forty-nine. Margaret dropped out of school and moved in with her sister. She ended up teaching first grade children and absolutely hated it. She hated children at that time. When Margaret was a child herself however, she would dream about living on the hill where all the wealthy people lived. She would dream of playing tennis and wearing beautiful c...
The Web. The Web. 15 Apr. 2013. The. Waskey, Andrew J. -. “Moral Status of Embryos.”
them to have an identity that separates from their spouses. Birth control helped shift slightly the balance of power from only being masculine to shared between the sexes. Margaret did so much to bring the issue of birth control and its benefits in to the for fount in her time. Her writings and actions better the lives of women in America then, and today more then ever. Margaret Sanger wrote the woman "...must emerge from her ignorance and assume her responsibility..." of her own body and "...the first step is Birth Control. Through Birth Control [the woman] will attain voluntary motherhood. Having attained this, the basic freedom of her sex, [the woman] will cease to enslave herself…[the woman] will not stop at patching up the world; she will remake it" (Sanger A 36).
Marquis believes abortion to be extremely immoral. However he mentions that there are exceptions in rare but certain circumstances where abortion is acceptable. We can infer that these instances would include situations that would put the mother or child at serious risk by keeping the fetus. He is frustrated that this idea has received minimal support recently. As a result he wants to influence change in society in hopes of receiving the support and publicity this topic deserves. Marquis’ primary argument stems from the idea of killing in general. He explains it is immoral to kill an adult because it prematurely deprives the human of something they may have valued at the time they were killed, as well as something they may had valued in the future. Although the victim may not realize it at the time of their death, they certainly had a valuable future ahead of them to experience which has been cut short. We are the only ones who can decide what is valuable to them; in this case we value some things more than others, and this concept differs from person to person. For example, in the present I value the life I am given and the opportunity I have to earn my degree at Villanova University while also valuing my future as well knowing that I have a chance to be successful in the future. Although I have not succeeded yet, I still value that opportunity I have and the life I’m capable of achieving through earning a degree. Therefore, he connects this same theory to the life of a fetus. By killing the fetus the result is the same, we are depriving it of its futur...
The chapter on fecundity addresses the bizarre ways that nature has evolved to ensure the continuity of a species. As the title suggests, fecundity deals with the fertility of species where Annie Dillard explores the inefficiency of fertility and the brutality of nature’s evolution. In the end, Dillard concludes that death is a part of life.
In Dan Marquis’ article, “Why Abortion is Immoral”, he argues that aborting a fetus is like killing a human being already born and it deprives them of their future. Marquis leaves out the possible exceptions to abortion that include: a threat to the mom’s life, contraceptives, and pregnancy by rape. First, I will explain Marquis’ pro-life argument in detail about his statements of why abortion is morally wrong. Like in many societies, killing an innocent human being is considered morally wrong, just like in the United States. Second, I will state my objection to Marquis’ argument by examining the difference between a human being’s already born future compared to a potential fetus’s future.
Sanger explains that people who aren’t fit to care for a child shouldn’t bare children. She goes on to explain that the less irresponsible and reckless people there are “the less immortality shall exist”. Sanger wants to stop the disease known as over population at the source which is in the hands of women controlling the number of offspring they bring into the world. The argument in the speech is that using contraception doesn’t lower morals, when actually not using contraception is immoral because irresponsible people are “filling the earth with misery, poverty, and disease” (Sanger
In discussing whether God must create the best world that he can, Robert M. Adams raises the following hypothetical (Adams 1972, 326). Imagine a drug exists which is known to cause severe intellectual disability in any children conceived by a couple who takes it. If a couple desires to raise an intellectually disabled child, takes the drug, and conceives such a child, the challenge is to explain what, if anything, they have done wrong. The problem illustrated by this hypothetical is known as the “non-identity” problem (Benatar 2006, 114). The solution presented by Adams is that the parents have violated the following principle: “It is wrong for human beings to cause, knowingly and voluntarily, the procreation of an offspring of human parents which is notably deficient, by comparison with normal human beings, in mental or physical capacity” (Adams 1972, 330). After discussing whether someone is harmed by the parents’ action, this paper will build on the solution presented by Adams by suggesting two ways of understanding why the couple’s action was wrong – one utilitarian, and one virtue based.
Our culture has a stringent belief that creating new life if a beautiful process which should be cherished. Most often, the birth process is without complications and the results are a healthy active child. In retrospect, many individuals feel that there are circumstances that make it morally wrong to bring a child into the world. This is most often the case when reproduction results in the existence of another human being with a considerably reduced chance at a quality life. To delve even further into the topic, there are individuals that feel they have been morally wronged by the conception in itself. Wrongful conception is a topic of debate among many who question the ethical principles involved with the sanctity of human life. This paper will analyze the ethical dilemmas of human dignity, compassion, non-malfeasance, and social justice, as well the legal issues associated with wrongful conception.
Abortion is an important and rather popular topic in the philosophical world. On one side of the argument, pro choice, Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is permissible because the pregnancy might not have been voluntary or the mother’s life is at risk if she continues on with the pregnancy. On the opposing side of the argument, Don Marquis argues that abortion is wrong because it takes away all the potential things a fetus could value in their future life. In this paper, I will argue against Don Marquis view of abortion. I will begin by explaining that Marquis does not take into consideration the effect the pregnancy may have on the mother, and I will talk about how Thomson does take the mother into consideration. Next, I will criticize
The following essay will examine the morality of abortion with specific reference to the writings of Don Marquis, Judith Jarvis Thompson, Peter Singer and Mary Anne Warren. I will begin by assessing the strength of the argument provided by Marquis which claims that abortion is impermissible because it deprives a being of a potential “future like ours,” and then go on to consider the writings of Singer, Thomson and Warren to both refute Marquis claims and support my assertion that abortion is morally permissible primarily because of the threat to the freedom and bodily autonomy of women extending the right to life to a foetus in utero would pose.
Mills, Claudia. "Are There Morally Problematic Reasons for Having Children?." Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly 25.4 (2005): 2-9. Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.
In ‘Why it is Better Never to Come into Existence’ (Benatar, 1997), David Benatar argues that by bringing a person into existence, one harms him, and thus to bring anyone into existence is wrong. This notion is based upon a subtle distinction between weighing up pain and pleasure within an already existing being’s life, and weighing up pain and pleasure for a non-being.
The ethics of abortion is a topic that establishes arguments that attempt to argue if abortion is morally justified or not. Philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson wrote a pro- choice piece called “A Defense of Abortion.” In this paper, she presents various arguments that attempt to defend abortion by relating it to the woman carrying the fetus and her right in controlling her body. On the other side of the spectrum, philosopher Don Marquis wrote a pro- life paper called “Why Abortion Is Immoral.” Ultimately, Marquis argues that abortion is immoral with rare exceptions because it is resulting in the deprivation of the fetus’s valuable future. He supports his paper by creating the future-like-ours argument that compares the future of a fetus to the