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A few of my critics have claimed that I am committed to the desirability of suicide and even speciecide. They clearly intend this as a reductio ad ab… - David Benatar
" "A few of my critics have claimed that I am committed to the desirability of suicide and even speciecide. They clearly intend this as a reductio ad absurdum of my position. However, I considered the questions of suicide and speciecide in Better Never to Have Been and argued that these are not implications of my view.
First, it is possible to think that both coming into existence is a serious harm and that death is (usually) a serious harm. Indeed, some people might think that coming into existence is a serious harm in part because the harm of death is then inevitable.
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About David Benatar
(born 1966) is a South African philosopher, academic and author. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism in his book , in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings.
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D. Benatar
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A fourth way in which suicide is criticized is by claiming that it is a cowardly act. The idea is that the person who kills himself lacks the courage to face life’s burdens and thus “takes the easy way out.” Courage, on this view, requires standing one’s ground in the face of life’s adversities and bearing them with fortitude. One way to respond to this criticism is to deny that accepting life’s burdens is always courageous. This will seem odd to those who have a crude conception of courage according to which the unswerving, fearless response to adversity is always courageous. More sophisticated accounts of courage, however, recognize that a steely response may sometimes be a failing. This is what lies behind the adage that sometimes “discretion is the better part of valor.” On the more sophisticated views, too much bravado ceases to be courageous and is instead foolhardiness or even foolishness. Once we recognize that courage should not be confused with its simulacra, the possibility arises that some of life’s burdens may be so great and the point of bearing them so tenuous that enduring them further is not courageous at all and may even be foolish.
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Few prospective procreators consider the aesthetic impact of their potential children. But how many more producers of excrement and urine, flatulence, menstrual blood and semen, sweat, mucus, vomit, and pus do we really need? How much more human waste do we need to process? How many more corpses do we need to dispose of? It would be an aesthetic improvement if there were fewer people.
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