Antinatalism

 The darker philosophical argument about pleasure vs pain mainly comes from philosophical pessimism, especially from thinkers like Arthur Schopenhauer and later David Benatar. Their view is almost the opposite of modern psychology.

1. Schopenhauer’s argument: suffering dominates life

In works like The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer argued that:

• Life is driven by endless desire.
• Desire causes suffering while unfulfilled.
• When fulfilled, the result is only brief relief, not lasting happiness.

His basic formula:

Pain = the default state

Pleasure = temporary absence of pain

Example:

• Hunger → suffering
• Eating → relief (not lasting joy)
• Soon hunger returns

So he concluded life is mostly cycles of discomfort interrupted by short reliefs.

2. The “pleasure is negative” idea

Schopenhauer said:

• Pain is positive and real.
• Pleasure is negative, meaning it just removes pain.

For example:

Situation	Interpretation
Thirst	real suffering
Drinking water	removing suffering
After drinking	neutral again

So pleasure isn’t equal to pain—it’s just temporary cancellation of it.

3. Modern pessimism: Benatar’s asymmetry argument

Philosopher David Benatar expanded this in Better Never to Have Been.

His asymmetry argument says:

Situation	Good or bad
Presence of pain	Bad
Presence of pleasure	Good
Absence of pain	Good
Absence of pleasure	Not bad

This leads him to conclude:

Not existing avoids suffering without depriving anyone of pleasure.

So he argues coming into existence is always a harm.

This view is called Antinatalism.

4. Why many psychologists disagree

Researchers in Positive Psychology argue pessimists ignore several things:

1. Positive experiences are common and meaningful
2. Humans experience joy not just relief
3. People overwhelmingly report their lives are worth living

Large surveys by Gallup and the World Happiness Report consistently show most people rate their lives above the midpoint of satisfaction.

5. The real debate

So the disagreement is basically:

View	Claim
Psychology	Life contains more positive than negative experience
Pessimist philosophy	Suffering dominates because pleasure is only relief
Evolutionary view	Life feels mixed because survival requires sensitivity to pain

✅ The interesting conclusion:

Whether life is mostly pleasure or mostly pain depends on how you define pleasure.

• If pleasure = positive joy, life tends to be net positive.
• If pleasure = just relief from suffering, life looks mostly painful.

If you want, I can also show you a really striking statistic about human life that changes how people think about this question: the actual number of hours in an average life spent in enjoyment vs boredom vs stress. It’s surprisingly different from what most people guess.