After addressing the asymmetry argument, and its supporting asymmetries, the quality-of-life argument, and Benatar’s ‘Pro-Death’ view for abortion, the last post regarding Better Never To Have Been, deals with its sixth chapter. It is mostly about extinction, on which Benatar says:
“My answer to the question ‘How many people should there be?’ is ‘zero’. That is to say, I do not think that there should ever have been any people. Given that there have been people, I do not think that there should be any more. But this ‘zero’ answer, I said earlier, is an ideal answer.” (p. 182)
And: “it would be better if humans (and other species) became extinct. All things being equal, my arguments also suggest that it would be better if this occurred sooner rather than later.”

So far so good, however Benatar divides extinction into two categories:

“It would be helpful to distinguish between two ways in which a species can become extinct. The first is for it to be killed off. The second is for it to die off. We might call the first ‘killing-extinction’ and the second either ‘dying-extinction’ or ‘non-generative extinction’. When a species is killed off, extinction is brought about by killing members of the species until there are no more of them. This killing may be by humans or it may be by the hand of nature (or by humans forcing the hand of nature). By contrast, when a species dies off, extinction is brought about by a failure to replace those members of the species whose lives come to an inevitable natural end.” (p.195)

And argues against one of them:

“There are clear differences between the two. Most obviously, killing-extinction cuts lives short, whereas dying-extinction does not. Although it may be bad for anyone of us to die, it is still worse to die earlier than we need to. Secondly, there is a moral difference between some cases of killing-extinction and cases of dying-extinction. Were anti-natalists to become pro-mortalists and embark on a ‘speciecide’ programme of killing humans, their actions would be plagued by moral problems that would not be faced by dying-extinction. Humans killing their own species to extinction is troubling for all the reasons that killing is troubling. It is (usually) bad for those who are killed, and unlike dying (from natural causes), it is a bad that could be avoided (until dying occurs). Although we can regret somebody’s death from natural causes at the end of a full life span, we cannot say that any wrong has been done, whereas we can say that a moral agent killing somebody, without proper justification, is wrong.” (p.196)

In this paragraph, as well as in interviews and other papers, Benatar emphasises that he is not a pro-mortalist. Some argue that Benatar’s version of antinatalism entails pro-mortalism, but Benatar insists that it doesn’t. His reason is that since non-existence always has an advantage over existence, it is always better not to start a life, but once life has started, existing persons have interests to continue living so we must not act to cut their lives short or stop them once they have started. In fact he claims that death is another reason to be antinatalist “coming into existence is bad in part because it invariably leads to the harm of ceasing to exist” (p.213).

In this post I’ll argue that despite his repudiation attempt, Benatar’s version of antinatalism does indeed entail pro-mortalism, and more importantly, that there are other much stronger reasons to be pro-mortalist and pro-extinctionist, independent of any of Benatar’s arguments.

Extinction and Pro-Mortalism

Benatar argues in the article Every Conceivable Harm:A Further Defence of Anti-Natalism that:

“by itself, the asymmetry argument is insufficient to yield the antiatalist conclusion. It shows that it is better never to come into existence. It does not show how great a harm it is to come into existence. The second argument – what I shall call the quality-of-life argument – reveals the magnitude of that harm. However, the quality-of-life argument can also be understood as a separate argument for the conclusion that coming into existence is a harm.” (p.146)

I’ve specifically addressed the quality-of-life argument in a former post so please read it if you are not familiar with it. Basically the argument is that life is much worse than people tend to think it is, and the reason is that people’s self-assessment of the quality of life is extremely unreliable. Empirical evidence shows that most humans have an optimism bias, which leads them to overestimate the quality of their lives.

Such being the case, why is it only that coming into existence is a harm, but not existence itself? If life is as bad as Benatar argues it is, and if people’s self-assessments of the quality of life are so unreliable, then the fact that most of them state that their lives are worth continuing is also unreliable, and since according to Benatar, for the non-existent, the absence of pain is good, but the absence of pleasure is not bad, then it seems that Benatar’s antinatalism do entails pro-mortalism.

However, as mentioned earlier, Benatar argues against pro-mortalism, and one of his reasons is that he thinks death itself is a harm. When Benatar, like many others for that matter, claims that death itself is a harm, they don’t mean that the dying process is bad for the person who is dying, which is obvious, nor the harm of being aware that death is bound to happen someday, or the feeling that it’s coming close and etc. which is obviously bad for the one who experiences it. Both cases, dying and death in the mentioned sense, are bad experiences, but only as long as a person is still alive. The dead are no longer bothered with dying or death. Another point worth mentioning for that matter is that this claim is not made about others who are harmed by the death of a person. The case in point is whether death is bad for the one who died. And oddly, Benatar’s answer is yes, death is bad for the ones who died because it leads to the harm of ceasing to exist. In other words, for Benatar, death is a sort of deprivation. That is odd since the dead can’t experience any of the effects of their death. In fact they can’t experience anything hence can’t be deprived of anything. A state can’t be bad for someone if it doesn’t have bad consequences for that someone (or any consequences whatsoever in the case of death). It is often argued that death frustrates the wishes of the dead, but the dead can’t be frustrated. There is no one who experiences the loss of the goals which won’t be accomplished. No one is there anymore to be a victim of this “frustration”. This claim can only make sense if wishes were moral entities. There is no morally relevant agent who wants these wishes but is deprived by death.

Another reason why this claim is odd is that Benatar is the philosopher who argues that “The absence of pain is good even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone; but the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation”. So it seems that, especially in his case, it would be more plausible to argue that not only that the sooner human extinction comes the better, but that human extinction is a moral imperative. That is since it is preventing bad experiences from innumerable generations, with no negative effect, and since arguing that something is better, ethically compels (surly in this unequivocal case) an intervention to make it happen. After all, to stand idle while generation after generation spawns an unimaginable amount of suffering, is complicity.
Benatar explains the oddity by arguing that while non-existing persons don’t have an interest to live, existing people do have an interest to live, so it is a different scenario.

First of all, Benatar’s argument that death is a harm that adds to already bad life significantly undermines his argument that life is a serious harm. If life is as bad as he argues it is, then death should be viewed as salvation from harmful lives, not another harmful aspect of them. It is a harm that ends all other harms. So for death to be another harm and not a relief, the other harms must be not as bad as he argues they are.

But even if we accept that it is a different scenario and therefore doesn’t necessarily entail pro-mortalism, it is definitely not sufficient as a reason against extinction brought by killing, since to make that case Benatar must think that not only that existing people’s interests in continuing to exist (which is in itself flawed given the psychological features which distort their ability to make objective assessments of the actual quality of life and constitute instead a fallacious positive assessment) subdue their own suffering in life, but that they also subdue the suffering of all the future generations.
Even if death isn’t a benefit since it ends horrible lives, but really another harm in horrible lives, in order to oppose extinction brought by killing, Benatar must argue that the harm of cutting the lives of existing people short (which in itself should be doubtful since Benatar thinks that the absence of pleasure is bad only if there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation) overcomes the harms of anyone who would ever be born if the lives of existing people won’t be cut short. It is reasonable only if you think that life isn’t that bad. But Benatar does think so. If Beantar had only argued that it is better never to have been created in the first place since non-existence has an advantage over existence, then he could plausibly argue that his version of antinatalism doesn’t entail pro-mortalism. But he does argue that life is a harm. His antinatalism is not pure logic, meaning solely based on the logical conclusion derived from his asymmetry. He really cares about suffering. And that’s what makes his pro-life argument so strange. His support of what he calls ‘dying extinction’ is self-explanatory, however I fail to understand his opposition to ‘killing extinction’, especially when he of all people, is basing it on the opposition to cut existing people’s lives short. How can he seriously balance all the suffering of all the sentient creatures who would ever be created with the suffering of the existing people had their lives been cut short?
And given that non-existing have no interest in coming into existence, so they are not harmed by not coming into existence (he of course argues that they are harmed by coming into existence), then actually the opposition to human extinction if brought by killing and not by dying off, is favoring the sacrifice of anyone who would ever be born, for the sake of not hurting the interests of existing people whose lives would be cut short.

Although in supporting ‘dying extinction’ he is in favor that there won’t be future generations, his support of ‘a right to procreative freedom’ (claiming that if the state would actively prohibit reproduction it would require highly intrusive policing and invasions of privacy since people would refuse to obey this law) practically allows and accepts the creation of future generations. In addition, it is not that he opposes extinction brought by killing because of the option of ‘dying extinction’, but he opposes extinction brought by killing because killing is wrong, period. Even if there was no other way to prevent all the suffering of all the generations that would ever exist except by killing the current one, he would oppose it. And so despite that he is in favor that there won’t be future generations, he conditions this support with unethical terms.

Even if we accept the claim that people’s interests in continuing to live can be an argument against killing-extinction (despite that there is something very inconsistent when it comes from someone like Benatar who thinks that people’s self-assessments of quality of life are extremely unreliable, and that life is so bad that they mustn’t ever start, and since he is supposed to think that death is not bad for the dead considering that he argues that the absence of pleasures are bad only if there is someone for whom this absence is a deprivation), people’s interests in continuing to live is not a valid argument against extinction even if brought by killing, when it is at the expense of others. The interests of existing people are not negated but are set aside by bigger interests of many more subjects – the billions of subjects who are harmed by the existing people. Every human who continues to live means thousands of others who would continue to suffer as a result. Even if death has a cost, and it always has a cost, there is a much bigger cost for life. The main motive behind pro-mortalism isn’t the neutral nature of death for the ones who died, but the cruel nature of life for the ones who are living. It is not the fact that death is not bad for the one who dies, it is the fact that life is bad for the ones who are forced to live horrible lives because of that person.
The interests of current living humans can’t be seriously compared with the interests of generations upon generations of sentient creatures, who would otherwise be forced into a life of suffering.

I believe that the fact that death is not bad for the one who dies, mainly makes the dilemma much easier. But the main motive is that human extinction would prevent the suffering of trillions of nonhumans, as well as generation upon generation of frustrated humans who would continue to be forced into existence with different levels of misery.
Each human is not only suffering in life (and so non-existence is better than living for that person), but is first and foremost a little exploitation and pollution unit. The death of a person is not bad for that person, and it is good for many others.
And in a broader scale, the little good that humanity has brought to this world is concealed in the ocean of misery that it caused. Wherever humans have set their foot they have murdered, exploited and demolished. That includes each other, other species, and the environment.

Weighting the counterfactual desire of dead people to continue their existence against the concrete suffering of many more people, means that Benatar doesn’t take seriously enough his own quality of life argument. And that’s in the better case, in the worst one he is being cruel and speciesist as most of humans’ victims are animals, and they already significantly outnumber existing people. Trillions of sentient creatures would be forced into a miserable existence just so the interests of much less creatures, who are also their victimizers, won’t be violated. What about the interests of hundreds of billions of chickens who can’t spread their wings? What about the interests of tens of billions of pigs who don’t know what it is like not to feel pain? And the interests of tens of billions of ducks who never feel water or clean air throughout their entire lives? Their suffering is extremely greater than would be the suffering of the last generation of humans, were it on the brink of extinction. Therefore I think it is justified that human extinction would be initiated by people who care about others, obviously with minimum harm and as fast as possible. The best way I can think of to accomplish that is forced sterilization.

The amazingly sad thing is that during a podcast hosting Benatar, Sam Harris presented a human extinction scenario in which no one suffers and Benatar rejected it anyway. Harris asked him why would it be a bad thing for everyone to die tonight painlessly in their sleep without knowing that this is their last day, and without even experiencing it, and with no one around to know that it has even happened? Benatar replied that those of us who do exist, have an interest in continuing to exit, they have an interest to not be annihilated.
The power of this thought experiment lays in showing how human chauvinism is so deeply rooted. Even the suggestion of human extinction with no human ever being aware or experiencing it, is being rejected. It is beyond me how Benatar can think that existence is always bad, but the painless death of everyone is worse.
Condemning such a dream like scenario is complete evil. The claim that in the name of what the dead would have wanted if they were still alive (but currently don’t want anything and are not hurt by anything), he would sacrifice everyone who would ever suffer in this cruel world, is one of the harshest things I can imagine.
Preventing the human race from procreating using a virus or a bacteria or something of this sort which cause sterilization, is not as ideal as Sam Harris’ thought experiment, but it is probably the least harmful way of stopping the most harmful species ever in the history of this planet. And that is one of greatest things I can imagine.

References

Benatar, D. Better Never to Have Been (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Benatar, D. Every Conceivable Harm: A Further Defence of Anti-Natalism
S. Afr. Journal Philos. 2012, 31

Benatar, D. Still Better Never to Have Been: A Reply to (More of) My Critics
Journal of Ethics (2013)

Feldman, F. Some puzzles about the evil of death in Life, Death and Meaning (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2004)

Luper, S. Annihilation in Life, Death and Meaning (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2004)

McGregor, R. and Sullivan-Bissett, E. 2012: “Better No Longer To Be: The Harm of Continued Existence” The South African Journal of Philosophy

Pitcher, G. The misfortunate of the dead in Life, Death and Meaning (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2004)

Rosenbaum, S. How to be dead and not to care in Life, Death and Meaning (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2004)

Suits D. B. Why death is not bad for the ones died in Life, Death and Meaning (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2004)