David Benatar citations

David Benatar, né le 8 décembre 1966, est un philosophe, universitaire et auteur sud-africain.

Il est surtout connu pour son plaidoyer en faveur de l'antinatalisme dans son livre Better Never to Have Been : The Harm of Coming into Existence, dans lequel il soutient que le fait de venir à l'existence est un préjudice grave, quels que soient les sentiments de l'être existant une fois qu'il est venu à l'existence, et que, par conséquent, il est toujours moralement répréhensible de créer d'autres êtres sensibles. Wikipedia  

✵ 1966
David Benatar: 13   citations 0   J'aime

David Benatar: Citations en anglais

“The question is not whether humans will become extinct, but rather when they will. If the anti-natalist arguments are correct, it would be better, all things being equal, if this happened sooner rather than later for, the sooner it happens, the more suffering and misfortune will be avoided.”

" Kids? Just say no: You don’t have to dislike children to see the harms done by having them. There is a moral case against procreation https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-is-not-life-affirming-its-immoral", Aeon (2017)

“On my view there is no net benefit to coming into existence and thus coming into existence is never worth its costs.”

Source: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006), Introduction, p. 13

“There are some who will characterize my view as “nihilistic."”

Left unqualified, that characterization is false. My view of cosmic meaning is indeed nihilistic. I think that there is no cosmic meaning. If I am right about that, then calling me a nihilist about cosmic meaning is entirely appropriate. However, my view is not nihilistic about all meaning because I believe that there is meaning from some perspectives. Our lives can be meaningful, but only from the limited, terrestrial perspectives. There is a crucial perspective—the cosmic one—from which our lives are irredeemably meaningless. In thinking about meaning in life, two broad kinds of mistakes are made. There are those who think that the only relevant meaning is what is attainable. They ignore our cosmic meaninglessness or they find ways either to discount questions about cosmic meaning or to minimize the importance of cosmic meaninglessness. The other kind of mistake is to think that because we are cosmically insignificant, “nothing matters,” where the implication is that nothing matters from any perspective. If we lack cosmic meaning but have other kinds of meaning, then some things do matter, even though they only matter from some perspectives. It does make a difference, for example, whether or not one is adding to the vast amounts of harm on earth, even though that makes no difference to the rest of the cosmos.

p. 32
The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (2017), Meaninglessness

“A third belief about males has both descriptive and normative forms. It is the belief that males are, or at least should be, tough. They are thought to be able to endure pain and other hardships better than women. Whether or not they do take pain and other hardships “like a man,” it is certainly thought that they should. When it is said that they should take pain and hardships “like a man,” the word “man” clearly means more than “adult male human,” but rather one who stoically, unflinchingly bears whatever pain or suffering he experiences, including that which is inflicted on him precisely because he is a “man.””

This is true even when he is not a man, but rather a boy. Boys are taught early that they must act like men. Crying, they are told, is what girls do. They are discouraged from expressing hurt, sadness, fear, disappointment, insecurity, embarrassment and other such emotions. It is because males are thought to be and are expected to be tough that they may be treated more harshly. Thus, corporal punishment and various other forms of harshness may be inflicted on them but often not on females, who are purportedly more sensitive.
Source: The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (2012), Chapter 3, part 1: Beliefs about Males

“Humanity is a moral disaster. There would have been much less destruction had we never evolved. The fewer humans there are in the future, the less destruction there will still be.”

Source: Chapter 1: The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism https://books.google.com/books?id=J6dBCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q&f=false, 2015, p. 55
Source: Permissible Progeny? The Morality of Procreation and Parenting (2015)

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