ABSTRACT
Anti-Natalists believe it is, in general, wrong to start lives whether they’ll be, overall, good or bad. David Benatar believes this but believes also that many lives, once started, are worth living and should not be ended. The argument of this chapter’s first half is that it is hard to understand how Benatar arrives at this apparently implausible position. His attempts at explanation, I say, all fail. But then in the second half I endeavour to defend what is a very similar view. My argument appeals again to the person/non-person distinction. And I contend that where non-persons are concerned, pleasures at one time cannot compensate for, even if they can outweigh, pains. So we ought not to bring non-persons into existence. Where persons are concerned, such compensation can occur. But we cannot bring persons, directly, into existence. We bring into existence babies who gradually, and if all goes well, develop into persons. But then babies are non-persons. And so their pleasures fail to compensate for their pains. So, then, we ought not to bring babies into existence.
