Even the extent to which our desires and goals are fulfilled creates a misleadingly optimistic impression of how well our lives are going. This is be… - David Benatar

In coming into existence, we are guaranteed to suffer harms. The nature and magnitude of those harms vary from person to person. However, it is more common than not for these harms to include formidable ones: grinding poverty (and its associated costs), chronic pain, disability, disease, trauma, shame, loneliness, unhappiness, frailty, and decrepitude. Sometimes, these mark an entire life. Other times, they begin to intrude into a life that was previously devoid of them. For example, no matter how youthfully robust one may be now, a time will come when one will become enfeebled, unless something else gets one first. Although there are some things we can do to prevent or delay some of these harms, our fate, to a considerable extent, is out of our control. We may attempt to preserve our health, but all we can do thereby is reduce, not eliminate, the risks. Therefore, we have some, but relatively little, control over whether these harms will befall us.

The argument that coming into existence is always a harm can be summarized as follows: Both good and bad things happen only to those who exist. However, there is a crucial asymmetry between the good and the bad things. The absence of bad things, such as pain, is good even if there is nobody to enjoy that good, whereas the absence of good things, such as pleasure, is bad only if there is somebody who is deprived of these good things.

It is also suggested that the bad things in life are necessary in order to appreciate the good things, or at least to appreciate them fully. On this view, we can only enjoy pleasures (as much as we do) because we also experience pain. Similarly, our achievements are more satisfying if we have to work hard to attain them, and fulfilled desires mean more to us because we know that desires are not always fulfilled. There are many problems with this sort of argument. First, these sorts of claims are not always true. There is much pain that serves no useful purpose. There is no value in labor pains or in pain resulting from terminal diseases, for example. While the pain associated with kidney stones might now lead somebody to seek medical help, for most of human history, such pain served no purpose, as there was absolutely nothing anybody could do about kidney stones. Moreover, there are at least some pleasures we can enjoy without having to experience pain. Pleasant tastes, for example, do not require any experience of pain or unpleasantness. Similarly, many achievements can be satisfying even if they involve less or no striving. There may be a special satisfaction in the ease of attainment. There may be some individual variation. Perhaps some people are more capable of enjoying pleasure without having to experience pain and more capable of taking satisfaction in achievements that come with ease. Second, insofar as the good things in life do require a contrast in order to be fully appreciated, it is not clear that this appreciation requires as much bad as there is. We do not, for example, require millions of people suffering from chronic pain, infectious diseases, advancing paralysis, and tumors in order to appreciate the good things in life. We could enjoy our achievements without having to work quite so hard to attain them.