- Claim: Benatar also offers a second argument in support of his anti-natalist conclusion, which can be called the Deluded Gladness Argument. The main thrust of this argument is to show that while typical life assessments are often quite positive, they are almost always mistaken. This serves as a standalone argument for the claim that we should refrain from procreating since all (or almost all) lives are quite bad. It also offers support for the Asymmetry Argument which says that if an individual’s life will contain even the slightest harm, it is impermissible to bring them into existence. This argument aims to show that in the vast majority of cases, the harms contained in human lives are far from slight. Benatar argues that “even the best lives are very bad, and therefore that being brought into existence is always a considerable harm” (2006, 61).
- Response: Regardless of the status of Benatar’s asymmetry thesis, he has also urged that our lives are far worse than the value at which we normally assess them. If it turns out that most lives are actually not worth living, then this is a reason in itself not to procreate. But many have suggested that Benatar is mistaken about this fact. For instance, the fact that so many people are glad for their existence might be evidence in itself that such gladness is not deluded (DeGrazia 2012, 164). Furthermore, any plausible moral theory must be able to account for the fact that most people are glad to be alive and think that their lives are going well (DeGrazia 2012, 158). Another objection is that it fails to distinguish between higher-order pleasures and minor pains. Being tired or hungry is a harm, but it is outweighed by more valuable goods such as loving relationships. Many of the negative features that Benatar associates with existence can be overridden in this way (Harman 2009, 783).
- Alan Gewirth has comprehensively defended the concept of self-fulfillment as key to a meaningful life (1998). Although special relationships like the one between parents and children violate egalitarian norms, having a family does not violate anyone else’s human rights. This forms part of the basis for Gewirth claiming that while “children have not themselves voluntarily participated in setting up the family, their special concern for their parents and siblings is appropriately viewed as derivative, both morally and psychologically, from the parents’ special concern both for one another and for each of their children and, in this way, for the family as a whole” (1998, 143). At least for some people, procreating and the family unit are an important part of self-fulfillment. If Gewirth is right about the value of self-fulfillment, and procreating contributes to self-fulfillment (at least for certain individuals), then these ideas constitute a reason to reject Deluded Gladness. At the very least, Gewirth’s theory of self-fulfilment needs to be considered by Benatar in addition to the hedonistic theories, desire-fulfillment theories, and objective list theories he criticizes for encouraging inaccurate self assessments about quality of life.
- There are also important questions about whether the type of self-deception that seems to be required by the Undeluded Gladness Argument is even possible. For example, some theories of deception say that the deceiver knowingly and intentionally deceives another agent. But this makes it difficult to see how self-deception is even possible. The deceiver would know they are deceiving themselves since deceit is intentional. A problem arises because the notion that many people have simply deluded themselves into thinking their lives are better than they really are could plausibly be thought to be a form of self-deception. And yet on the theory of self-deception just described, we might wonder whether such self-deception is even possible. Connections between arguments for anti-natalism and self-deception are surely worthy of more consideration. As it stands, the literature on anti-natalism in general has not taken into account how different theories of self-deception might affect various arguments.