There was a time when I thought this kind of reasoning could only be unraveling the implications of a more basic ethical stance that is, ultimately, subjective. I no longer think this. There are, as Derek Parfit has argued in his major work On What Matters (which I describe in the pages below in an essay entitled “Does Anything Matter?”) objective ethical truths that we can discover through careful reasoning and reflection. (Location 158)
How good does life have to be to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world? (Location 589)
Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. One of Benatar’s arguments trades on something like the asymmetry noted earlier. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is, Benatar argues, to harm that person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to benefit him or her. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none. (Location 595)
Note: my question too: does reproducing perpetuate samsara [unnecessarily]?
is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings? (Location 621)
