Question

Elias Muusavi published a defense of David Benatar's asymmetry argument. Benatar argues that it is always wrong to bring a new person into existence because suffering is worse than absence of suffering. Muusavi argues that absence of pleasure is not worse than presence of pleasure and that in order to say that something is worse than something else, you must have some way of comparing the two things. Since the non-existent entity has no experiences and can't make comparisons, Benatar's argument doesn't apply.

Does this argument really hold? One objection to Muusavi's argument is that we can still make comparisons between non-existent entities and existent entities. For example, we can say that being stabbed is worse than not being stabbed, even if non-existent entities can't experience either one.
Another objection to Muusavi's argument is that it relies on a controversial assumption about the meaning of life. Benatar argues that the only thing that gives life meaning is pleasure, so when we bring a new person into existence, we risk creating a person who will have more suffering than pleasure. Muusavi doesn't address this argument, but it's a big problem with his overall position.
Finally, Muusavi's argument leads to pro-mortalism, which is the belief that everyone should kill themselves. This is because if it's wrong to bring a new person into existence, then it must also be wrong to keep an existing person in existence. Muusavi doesn't explicitly endorse pro-mortalism, but his argument leads to it quite naturally.
In conclusion, Muusavi's argument for Benatar's asymmetry argument is problematic on several fronts. It's not clear that his argument really holds, and it leads to some disturbing conclusions, such as pro-mortalism.

Answer 1

The question is about Elias Muusavi's defense of David Benatar's asymmetry argument, which argues that it is always wrong to bring a new person into existence because suffering is worse than absence of suffering.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question is about Elias Muusavi's defense of David Benatar's asymmetry argument. Benatar argues that it is always wrong to bring a new person into existence because suffering is worse than absence of suffering. Muusavi counters this by arguing that absence of pleasure is not worse than presence of pleasure and that in order to say that something is worse than something else, you must have some way of comparing the two things. Muusavi counters this argument, but there are objections to his position.

Since the non-existent entity has no experiences and can't make comparisons, Benatar's argument doesn't apply. However, there are objections to Muusavi's argument. One objection is that we can still make comparisons between non-existent entities and existent entities, like saying being stabbed is worse than not being stabbed. Another objection is that Muusavi's argument relies on a controversial assumption about the meaning of life, as Benatar argues that pleasure is the only thing that gives life meaning. Lastly, Muusavi's argument leads to pro-mortalism, the belief that everyone should kill themselves, which is a problematic conclusion.