Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Anti-Natalism

  • David Benatar on Death and the Challenge of the Epicurean Argument in its Hedonist Form

    This is the sixth in a series on David Benatar's The Human Predicament (Oxford UP, 2017). We are now in Chapter 5. I will need to proceed slowly through this rich and detailed chapter. There is a lot to learn from it. The entry covers pp. 92-101. Does Death Release Us From the Human Predicament? Logically prior questions: Is…

  • Anti-Natalism: Jordan Peterson versus David Benatar

    A lengthy podcast. (HTs: Paolo Juarez, Paul Craddick, Karl White, et al.) I haven't listened to the whole thing, but I have heard enough to know that Professor Peterson is out beyond his depth and no match for the super-sharp Benatar. My ongoing series on Benatar's latest book is here.

  • A Defense of David Benatar Against a Scurrilous New Criterion Attack

    By a defense of Benatar, I do not mean a defense of his deeply pessimistic and anti-natalist views, views to which I do not subscribe. I mean a defense of the courageous practice of unrestrained philosophical inquiry, inquiry that follows the arguments where they lead, even if they issue in conclusions that make people extremely…

  • David Benatar on the Quality of Human Life, Part II

    This is the fifth in a series on David Benatar's The Human Predicament (Oxford UP, 2017). This entry covers pp. 71-83 of Chapter  Four, pp. 64-91, entitled "Quality." In our last installment we discussed whether Benatar is justified in his claim that the quality of life is in most cases objectively worse than we think it is. (I cast…

  • Anti-Natalism and the Search for Truth

    C. L. writes and I respond in blue: You never seem to allow comments on the posts I want to comment on, so I'm forced to add another email to  your overwhelming pile. BV: Well, my pile is not that bad. This is one of the many benefits of relative obscurity. And I am happy…

  • Anti-Natalism and Demographics

    I can imagine someone objecting to me as follows: Why the careful and respectful attention to the anti-natalist writings of David Benatar and others when the West, Europe especially, is under dire existential threat from hordes of non-Western immigrants who have no intention of assimilating but aim at cultural conquest?  Anti-natalism is an expression of…

  • David Benatar on the Quality of Human Life, Part I

    This is the fourth in a series on David Benatar's The Human Predicament (Oxford UP, 2017). This entry covers pp. 64-71 of Chapter  Four, pp. 64-91, entitled "Quality." The Meaning Question and the Quality Question These are different questions. Although for Benatar no human life has what he calls "cosmic" meaning, a life can have a high degree of…

  • David Benatar in The New Yorker

    This New Yorker piece is worth reading. (HTs: Dave Lull, Karl White)  It helps clarify Benatar's anti-natalism.  One feature of his position is that death is no solution to the human predicament.  As I would put it, the Grim Reaper is not a Benign Releaser. For while life is bad, so is death.  Not just…

  • More on Christian Anti-Natalism

    I wrote in Christian Anti-Natalism?: Without denying that there are anti-natalist tendencies in Christianity that surface in some of its exponents, the late Kierkegaard for  example, it cannot be maintained that orthodox Christianity, on balance, is anti-natalist. Ask yourself: what is the central and characteristic Christian idea? It is the Incarnation, the idea that God…

  • Christian Anti-Natalism?

    From Karl White, esteemed cybernaut: I found this topic from an online group interesting: "I tried sharing and discussing my antinatalist beliefs with a Christian Anarchism group I'm a part of. My antinatalism comes directly and exclusively from my Christian faith, and I believe that any Christian who does not become an antinatalist after Bible…

  • Peter Wessel Zappfe’s Anti-Natalism

    Here, with some critical commentary. UPDATE: A reader comments: That older post on Zapffe and his absurdism is fantastic.  You present the problem with deep sympathy and clarity.  We're kindred spirits.  I've often felt that if people just considered _seriously_ their own commitments, or our shared predicament–just to realize that it really is a predicament–their…

  • Mindless Hostility to David Benatar

    A scurrilous attack piece in The American Spectator actually provides a bit of support for pessimism about the human condition.  One ought to be disturbed by the inability of so many journalists to control their emotions and assess arguments in a calm and rational manner. The attack piece in question is beneath refutation and so I…

  • Is Life a Predicament?

    My old friend Joe sent me a vitriolic statement in denunciation of David Benatar, both the man and his ideas. I will quote only a relatively benign portion of Joe's rant: I do not experience life as a predicament but as a great gift. I am surrounded by love and beauty, and even have been able…

  • David Benatar, The Human Predicament, Introduction

    My plan is to work my way through David Benatar's latest book, The Human Predicament, Oxford UP 2017, chapter by chapter. Herewith, some notes on the Introduction, pp. 1-12. I will summarize the main points and add such critical comments as seem appropriate. Benatar appreciates that the human condition is a predicament, an unsatisfactory state…

  • Epitaph on a Pessimist

    I'm Smith of Stoke, aged sixty-odd,     I've lived without a dame From youth-time on: and would to God     My dad had done the same. Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928. The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, ed. Grigson, 1977, p. 186.