ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the good cause account of the meaning of life, and argues against a few reasons to think that most if not all human lives are meaningless. It considers, optimism, the view that human life is often, if not typically, worth living. The traditional challenge to the view that life is worth living comes from pessimism about the human condition—the view that life is suffering or on balance worse than it is good. The absence of pain is good, whereas the absence of pleasure is neither prudentially good nor bad for the non-existent. The prudential asymmetry grounds the anti-natalist moral claim. The chapter refers to this as the asymmetry argument and begins with a presentation of Benatar's asymmetry argument. It shows that Benatar's argument is unsuccessful either way. It then focuses on the suicide test for what makes a life worth living.
