The Axiological Status of Theism and Other Worldviews by Kirk Lougheed

Author:Kirk Lougheed
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030548209
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of the reason Benatar narrows his claim is because it is logically possible that there are worlds where an individual never experiences harm; they only ever experience good things. Coming into existence in that world would not be a harm.9 Yet Benatar’s argument is still applicable to my purposes since if existence is in our world is always bad then it is false that existence is intrinsically good. Since Benatar intends his argument to apply to our world and theists think our world is a God world then Benatar’s argument surely applies to certain theistic worlds (i.e. our world if God exists).

Benatar’s main claim is not that the never existing are better off than the existing. Rather, “existence is always bad for those who come into existence” (Benatar 2005, 4). Strictly speaking, not being brought into existence isn’t better than being brought into existence. For the term ‘non-existent being’ has no referent (Benatar 2005, 4–5). Benatar further explains that if we assume that one’s genetic profile is essential to personal identity, the chances of each particular person coming into existence is incredibly small. Accordingly, because we’ve been brought into existence this makes us incredibly unlucky (2005, 7).

Can coming into existence in itself ever constitute a harm? This question involves what Derek Parfit calls the non-identity problem.10 Benatar explains that “[t]he problem arises in those cases where the only alternative to bringing a person into existence with a poor quality of life is not to bring that person into existence at all” (Benatar 2005, 19). Suppose one is harmed by a genetic condition or terrible environment. The problem arises in that it is impossible to bring the same person (i.e. the same essence) into existence without the genetic condition or terrible environment (Benatar 2005, 19). To bring them into existence without the impairment would be to bring altogether different person into existence. If such impairments really are essential to identity, then it can’t be wrong to bring a person into existence who has said impairments. For they aren’t made worse off by them since they could not exist without them in the first place.

Benatar says that Parfit, among others, fails to make the distinction between (i) a life a worth continuing and (ii) a life worth starting. He calls this the distinction between the ‘present-life sense’ versus ‘future-life’. Asking whether a life is worth continuing is a question that only a person who exists can ask. However, asking whether a life is worth starting is a question about a potential but non-existent being (Benatar 2005, 22).11 Benatar says that his opponents often conflate the former with the latter. He explains that:When they distinguish between impairments that make a life not worth living and impairments that, though severe, are so bad as to make life not worth living, they are making the judgments in the present-life cases. Those lives nor worth living are those that would not be worth continuing. But the problem is that these notions are then applied to future-life cases.

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