"It is unlikely that many people will take……" — David Benatar
"It is unlikely that many people will take to heart the conclusion that coming into existence is always a harm. It is even less likely that many people will stop having children. By contrast, it is quite likely that my views either will be ignored or will be dismissed. As this response will account for a great deal of suffering between now and the demise of humanity, it cannot plausibly be thought of as philanthropic. That is not to say that it is motivated by any malice towards humans, but it does result from a self-deceptive indifference to the harm of coming into existence."
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David Benatar
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8 Quotes by David Benatar
David Benatar has 8 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Creating new people, by having babies, is so much a part of human life that it is rarely thought even…
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It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them…
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Notice, by extension, that in a democracy those committed to non-procreation could never, in the long run, prevail politically against…
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On my view there is no net benefit to coming into existence and thus coming into existence is never worth…
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Each one of us was harmed by being brought into existence. That harm is not negligible, because the quality of…
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We infrequently contemplate the harms that await any new-born child—pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief, and death. For any given child we…
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As we have seen, nobody is lucky enough not to be born, everybody is unlucky enough to have been born…
See all 8 quotes by David Benatar »
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