Antinatalism: David Benatar’s Asymmetry Argument for Why it’s Wrong to Have Children

Is it always morally permissible to have children? Or are there some cases where bringing new life into the world is irredeemably harmful?

If we could be certain, for example, that a child would be born into a brief life of tortuous agony, then it seems reasonable to conclude that it would be wrong to actively try to bring forth such a life. In fact, we might even say we have a duty to try to prevent such an unbearably miserable life from coming into being.

But what about more typical lives? What about existences that contain a mix of happiness and suffering? Surely it’s fine to create more of those?

Antinatalism is a philosophical position that says no, it’s not. Given the amount of suffering even an average life will experience — pain, fear, anxiety, sickness, toil, boredom, exhaustion, loneliness, persecution, grief, insecurity, disease, violence, death — bringing new beings into existence is morally wrong.

Of course, life has its moments of happiness, but antinatalists generally think such moments do not justify the otherwise relentless worries, discomforts, and torments to which existence exposes us. It would be better for all of us if we’d never been born.

This may seem an absurdly pessimistic view, but antinatalists claim it’s merely realistic. If we look at existence rationally, away from the biological imperative to survive and multiply — which biases us into thinking life is more sunshine and rainbows than death and taxes — then we will come to recognize that existence itself is a losing game.

One source of inspiration for antinatalism is the great pessimist of Western philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer. Though he doesn’t propose antinatalism specifically, Schopenhauer characterizes human existence as a pendulum swinging drearily between boredom and pain.

We spend our days longing (painfully) for things we lack, Schopenhauer observes: food, entertainment, meaning, connection, warmth, solitude, wealth. Such longings are only ever satisfied fleetingly — if at all — before the impotent ache of boredom descends, a new longing consumes our attention, and we set off in painful pursuit once more.

“The measures of suffering in human life [are] out of all proportion to its pleasures,” Schopenhauer declares in his essay On the Sufferings of the World, before asking:

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?

Antinatalists answer Schopenhauer’s first question with a firm no. Given the wretchedness of existence — given the world is a bad place and on course to get worse — the best outcome for humanity would be to cease procreating, and over the next several decades guide ourselves (and ideally all other sentient life) to a painless extinction.

So far, so cheerful: it’s easy to baulk at this rather extreme conclusion.

But our propensity for bewilderment, exasperation, or even outrage on the topic of antinatalism should give us pause, argues one of its major contemporary proponents, the South African philosopher David Benatar.

That the idea hits such a nerve is unsurprising: reproduction is how life sustains itself. When the antinatalists utter their scandalous creed, millions of years of evolution, in response, command us to draw our swords. How dare this death cult spread such dangerous drivel!

Benatar asks us to halt, sheathe our weapons, and consider what he has to say. Of course life wants more life; but let’s consider our situation dispassionately. Let’s reflect on the actual reasoning behind the creation of new life. If we do so, we may discover that procreation is not quite the noble endeavour it’s often made out to be.

Beyond simply emphasizing how awful life is, antinatalists offer a number of arguments in support of their position. One of the most influential in the philosophical literature is Benatar’s so-called asymmetry argument, presented in his 2006 book Better Never to Have Been.

Benatar’s asymmetry argument: why nonexistence is preferable to existence

Benatar’s argument rests on the idea that there’s a fundamental asymmetry between pain and pleasure: while pain is bad and its absence is good, pleasure is good but its absence is not bad. The asymmetry can be expressed more fully as follows:

1. The presence of pain is bad
2. The presence of pleasure is good
3. The absence of pain is good (even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone)
4. The absence of pleasure is not bad (unless someone already exists to be deprived of it)

The crucial point here is that, while the absence of pain is good, the absence of pleasure is not bad unless someone is there to feel its absence.

Benatar thinks support for this asymmetry comes from the fact that it provides the best explanation for some of our common intuitions about happiness and suffering.

Suppose, for instance, we discovered that there were millions of beings on Mars profoundly suffering. We would be rightly concerned by this: it would be awful if such suffering existed, and it’s good that, in reality, it doesn’t.

We are not horrified, however, by the corresponding lack of pleasure on Mars. It would probably be a little strange for someone to routinely mourn all the absent happiness of nonexistent beings, Benatar writes:

We are rightly sad for distant people who suffer. By contrast we need not shed any tears for absent happy people on uninhabited planets, or uninhabited islands or other regions on our own planet.

The same kind of asymmetry runs through how we think about moral duties, Benatar claims: preventing harm seems more important, morally-speaking, than producing pleasure. We have a duty not to hurt our fellow citizens, but we’re not morally required to make them all happy.

But if we take this asymmetry to its logical conclusion, if we accept that harm aversion is more important than benefit accrual, then we must accept something quite startling: nonexistence seems to be preferable to existence.

Existence opens the door to both pleasure, which is good, but also pain, which is bad. Nonexistence, meanwhile, doesn’t contain pain, which is good, while the absence of pleasure does no one any harm.

On balance, then, compared to a scenario in which they never existed, existence is never in a person’s interests, because it harms them. It offers pleasure, too, but this pleasure wouldn’t have been missed in nonexistence, because no one would exist to miss it. Nonexistence is harmless, but existence is full of harm: nonexistence is thus preferable to existence.

Now, once we do exist, we might have reasons to carry on existing: Benatar isn’t suggesting we should all commit suicide. It’s not that life isn’t worth living; it’s that it isn’t worth starting. Because of the asymmetrical value structure of pleasure and pain, because nonexistence is harmless, coming into existence always does us harm.

We cannot exactly go back in time and stop ourselves from ever existing; but one thing we do have control over is deciding not to inflict the irrevocable harm of existence on a new generation.

If we keep producing children, we create beings who will experience great suffering for the sake of pleasures that would not have been missed in their absence. The safest bet, then, is to avoid bringing people into existence.

From a relatively simple set of premises, Benatar thus draws one of philosophy’s most controversial conclusions: bringing someone into existence opens them to tremendous harm, and given we have a duty to reduce harm, we should avoid bringing people into existence.

Responses to Benatar’s asymmetry argument

Philosophers have responded to Benatar’s argument in many different ways. If we recall, Benatar thinks his asymmetry is supported by the fact that it explains some widely-held intuitions around happiness and suffering, such as that pain aversion is more important than benefit accrual. Some philosophers suggest that if Benatar’s argument relies on intuitions, yet leads to a deeply unintuitive conclusion, then it seems unclear why we should trust our intuitions in one case and not the other.

Other philosophers simply reject the asymmetry itself: rather than ‘not bad’, the absence of pleasure — no loving relationships, no sensual joy, no spiritual serenity — is in fact just plain bad. A universe lacking such things would be worse than one that has them, and we do lament absent pleasures.

In a 2021 paper, meanwhile, the philosopher Fumitake Yoshizawa suggests that even if we grant Benatar all his intuitions and premises, the antinatalist conclusion still doesn’t follow. Benatar’s asymmetry evaluates parts of a life, like pain and pleasure, while drawing conclusions about life as a whole. If we adapt Benatar’s asymmetry to instead evaluate life as a whole, it runs like this:

1. A miserable life is bad
2. A happy life is good
3. The absence of a miserable life is good
4. The absence of a happy life is not bad

This follows the exact same asymmetrical logic as Benatar’s argument, and it accounts for the other asymmetrical beliefs he draws upon; but here the global antinatalist conclusion doesn’t follow.

Instead, a more limited local antinatalism follows: in some cases — i.e. ones where it’s guaranteed someone will live a miserable life — creating life constitutes a harm. But the creation of happy lives is not impermissible.

Antinatalists might respond that creating ‘happy lives’ is ultimately impossible. Given the sheer quantity of pain and suffering, the value of life is always a net negative, so procreation remains wrong.

But here we are moving away from asymmetry and into more general antinatalist arguments. Let us thus consider more general responses.

Is the value of a life only constituted by the balance between pleasure and pain?

To the antinatalist suggestion that life always contains more suffering than happiness, there are a number of potential responses. One is simply to dispute it: antinatalists are quick to point out our lacks, wants, and chronic pains; they tend not to draw attention to the everyday pleasures found in simply sitting, breathing, eating, walking, laughing, listening, looking. “Find ecstasy in life,” implored Emily Dickinson, “the mere sense of living is joy enough.”

Another response is to look beyond pain and pleasure entirely: to wonder whether focusing so much on the precise calculation of joy and suffering misses life’s point…

Virtue ethicists like Aristotle, for instance, tell us that the good life isn’t about the balance of pleasure over pain; it’s about expressing excellence. Indeed, the Stoics go as far to declare that what happens to us is generally an ‘indifferent’; it’s how we respond that matters. Rather than lament that we do not have a perfect, ideal, pain-free existence, our energy would be better directed on cultivating the unique flavor of excellence available to us in this life.

Antinatalists might say, well, that’s all fine and dandy for justifying the continuation of your life, but it still doesn’t license you to create new life — to expose new beings to the wretched suffering of a limited human existence.

But if we don’t value life only as the attempt to secure more pleasure over pain, then this sort of argument against procreation doesn’t really touch us. If we see life also as the pursuit of excellence, or connection, or meaning, then creating and nurturing the next generation can play a fundamental part in that.

This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a duty to procreate — people can pursue different forms of excellence and fulfill their potential in different ways — but it’s difficult to see how it’s an unforgivable moral sin, especially if we do our best to enhance our children’s experiences, and prepare them for excellence in their own lives.

Indeed, if we commit to raising someone who ends up being thankful they exist, then where’s the harm in that?

Another, more meta response to antinatalism would be to argue that the continuation of life is the precondition for the continuation of value as a whole. If your value system tells you that the maintenance of life itself is immoral, then maybe it’s not life that’s the problem; maybe it’s your value system.

Of course, antinatalists might claim that all these responses are exactly what people deluded by life would say: they are shameless optimists in denial about the reality of suffering.

But while there may indeed be psychological mechanisms at play that bias us towards focusing on the good, to suggest that everyone who is glad to be alive is deluded is at best patronising and at worst completely detached from reality. If people say they are made happy by life, that they are glad they were brought into existence, then we should take them as seriously as people who say they are not.

Besides, what’s at stake here is not whether life involves suffering (it does); what’s at stake is how we respond to life’s suffering.

Antinatalists essentially recommend that humanity surrenders itself to the void, but surrender is far from our only option. There are ways to respond to suffering that don’t involve literal extinction; the ​Buddha recommends the extinction of ego instead​, for instance.

But another kind of response is simply to strive to make the world better for our children. We could recognize, ​with Nietzsche​, that there is value to be found in overcoming suffering. Our task is not to fade away as painlessly as possible, but to discover meaning in the struggle, to joyfully affirm our existences, to produce and cultivate beautiful ways of saying yes, rather than no, to life.

Where does antinatalism leave us?

The decision to have children usually centers around the impact on the parents. (In this department, Laurie Ann Paul reflects on how prospective parents can best navigate insecurities over their own readiness, willingness, commitment, financial set up, capabilities, and futures.)

Antinatalists ask us instead to center our decision around the impact on the new life created. Is it worthwhile to bring a new being into existence, from the perspective of that being? Will they have a good life? Will they fulfill their potential or find meaning in this troubled world? Or would they have been better off never existing?

Centering the child’s perspective is not exclusive to antinatalists. The philosopher Hugh Lafolette suggests some kind of parental licensing program could enshrine a child’s right to a good life in law. Many people naturally want the best for their children, and do everything they can to secure it.

But Benatar’s asymmetry argument suggests that, no matter what we do in life, it’s already too late: people are harmed simply by being brought into existence. As he puts it:

Each of us was harmed by being brought into existence, because the quality of even the best lives is very bad and worse than most people recognize it to be. But it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people.

Some might agree with this analysis; others might find every cell of their bodies disagreeing. At the very least, it provokes us to think deeply about what we value about life: it draws out some of our most basic beliefs and presuppositions about the nature of existence.

Reflecting on antinatalism can thus, ironically, end up being life-affirming: by confronting those who claim it’s in humanity’s interests to surrender, we can discover our reasons for wanting to carry on.

What do you make of antinatalism?

• Does any of the antinatalist analysis resonate with you?
• What do you make of Benatar’s asymmetry argument?
• If you decided to have or not have children, what drove your decision?
• What do you think makes life worth living?

To inform your answers, you might enjoy the following related articles:

• Laurie Ann Paul on Deciding Whether or Not to Have Children
• Should Parenting Require a License?
• Nietzsche On Why Suffering is Necessary for Greatness
• On Living Meaningfully in a Vast Universe: Robert Nozick
• Finding Rapture in the Humdrum: Cultivating Wonder for Everyday Life

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