BETTER NEVER TO HAVE BEEN BELIEVED: BENATAR ON THE HARM OF EXISTENCE

摘要

In Better Never to Have Been, David Benatar argues that existence is always a harm (Benatar 2006:18-59). His argument, in brief, is that this follows from a theory of personal good which we ought to accept because it best explains several 'asymmetries'. I shall argue here (a) that Benatar's theory suffers from a defect which was already widely known to afflict similar theories, and (b) that the main asymmetry he discusses is better explained in a way which allows that existence is often not a harm.