This paper presents a meta-critique of David Benatar’s antinatalism, demonstrating that his arguments do not merely yield counter-intuitive conclusions, but rest on foundational axioms that collapse into internal contradiction, triviality, or arbitrariness under rigorous logical scrutiny. Rather than engaging within the normative boundaries set by Benatar, this study employs a strict reductio ad absurdum to push his core premises to their logical extremes. First, on the epistemological level, reducing quality of life to a balance of pleasure and displeasure entails the absurd conclusion that a perpetually drugged, semi-conscious existence is optimal; shifting to the framework of happiness and suffering reveals them as interdependent subjective qualia, invalidating Benatar’s asymmetric attribution of objective reality solely to suffering. Second, on the utilitarian level, negative utilitarianism commits a fatal self-contradiction by forcing existential suffering upon concrete, existing subjects to prevent the hypothetical suffering of non-existent entities. Furthermore, reducing utilitarianism to individual preferences (rational egoism) renders procreation morally justifiable, whereas collective utilitarianism produces absurd moral imperatives, as illustrated by thought experiments involving systemic trauma. Third, regarding moral obligations and sentience, extending duties to non-existent entities introduces catastrophic logical fallacies, while the criterion of 'sentience' falls into a fatal dilemma: either it is reduced to physical electrical signals, rendering it trivial and applicable to cellular/microbial entities, or it is arbitrarily tied to a central nervous system, failing to account for complex, active organisms without brains (e.g., jellyfish). Ultimately, this paper demonstrates that Benatar’s antinatalism is structurally unviable regardless of the specific framework adopted, providing a meta-philosophical deconstruction that dismantles the anti-procreative stance at its axiomatic foundation.
김, 정연: A Meta-Critique of David Benatar’s Antinatalism
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