Life sucks—each individual experiences an idiosyncratic mix of pains and joys, and then dies. I’m not ready to give up mine yet, and neither does David Benathar. Which implies a belief that the potential of goodness outweighs the likelihood of suckage. Objectively, for many there is more suckage than winning, but even they weight the potential small wins higher than the likely large unpleasantness. This is true for the vast majority of living creatures.
I don’t know what’s true about preferences that the (much larger number, so good thing we’re not voting on it) of dead and never-existed beings.
But it takes a pretty confused worldview to incorporate that very large and repeated-under-many-circumstances data about preferences of living things (including oneself) and not conclude that existence is preferred, and that includes one’s potential children.
Life sucks—each individual experiences an idiosyncratic mix of pains and joys, and then dies. I’m not ready to give up mine yet, and neither does David Benathar. Which implies a belief that the potential of goodness outweighs the likelihood of suckage. Objectively, for many there is more suckage than winning, but even they weight the potential small wins higher than the likely large unpleasantness. This is true for the vast majority of living creatures.
I don’t know what’s true about preferences that the (much larger number, so good thing we’re not voting on it) of dead and never-existed beings.
But it takes a pretty confused worldview to incorporate that very large and repeated-under-many-circumstances data about preferences of living things (including oneself) and not conclude that existence is preferred, and that includes one’s potential children.