The Goodness of Existence

Jarlath Cox says whether life brings pleasure or pain, the value of being born is the ability to experience at all.

- By Jarlath Cox. Photographs Jason Pettit and Milu92

Nearly everyone is led to question the goodness of their existence at some point in their life. Whether this is due to an accumulation of personal set-backs, an event badly affecting a friend or family member, or simply due to nightly news reports of widespread tragedy, suffering, and war throughout the world, such things can make us question the goodness of being born at all. Is existence, all in all, really as good as we’re often inclined to believe? Or is the peaceful state of non-existence not getting the endorsement it deserves?

One who affirms the latter position is the South African philosopher David Benatar. He is an advocate of antinatalism, the position that procreation is morally wrong due to the inherent suffering and harm with which people are afflicted upon being born into this world. Antinatalists believe the human race should stop reproducing.

Benatar sets forth a rational and logical argument, devoid of any appeal to emotion, as to why our existence is objectively more harmful than beneficial to us. He does so most extensively in his 2006 book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, although much of this article refers to his papers ‘Why coming into Existence is Always a Harm’ and ‘How Bad is Coming into Existence?’ (2017), available at