Benatar and regret
In earlier posts and in my book, I argued that purely retrospective regret is irrational for any determinist who holds typical views about the value of human existence. Let E be any event in your life that you’re inclined to regret. Determinism (plus the relevant physics) tells you that no humans would exist at all if E hadn’t occurred. If you regard the existence of humans as better overall than their total absence, then you ought to prefer the existence of humans-and-E over no humans at all.
This argument leaves room for rationally regretting E if, like philosopher David Benatar, you prefer that humans had never existed. Indeed, Benatar condemns the whole package: he concludes that it would be far better if no sentient life at all had ever existed. As I’ve said before, his asymmetry argument for that conclusion fails to persuade me. But at least his view is consistent with both determinism and retrospective regret.
Even if Benatar’s argument for it is unsound, the view he holds may still be true. Unsound arguments can have true conclusions. According to determinism, the only options having non-negligible probabilities are these: (P) the whole package of sentient existence as it is or (N) no sentient existence at all. Benatar favors N.
In his famous essay “Death,” philosopher Thomas Nagel defends the diametrically opposite view. While some experiences make life better and some make it worse, he says,
what remains when these are set aside is not merely neutral: it is emphatically positive. Therefore life is worth living even when the bad elements of experience are plentiful, and the good ones too meager to outweigh the bad ones on their own. The additional positive weight is supplied by experience itself, rather than by any of its consequences.
I agree with Steven Luper, who says that Nagel’s view
is implausible, as is evident to anyone who would rather be sedated into unconsciousness than undergo the suffering she would otherwise experience during surgery. Under such circumstances, sedation is overall good for us, despite the fact that (indeed: because) it stops us from experiencing things for a time.
So I believe that any successful argument for Benatar’s conclusion must come from a thorough assessment of P rather than from his unconvincing claims about the asymmetry of pain and pleasure. Nor, I believe, can one refute Benatar by citing Nagel’s implausible claim that experience, as such, always has positive value.
