Centre for Professional & Applied Ethics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Bioethics. 2019 Jul;33(6):674-683. doi: 10.1111/bioe.12582. Epub 2019 Apr 23.
In this article I reconsider David Benatar's primary argument for anti-natalism-the asymmetry argument-and outline a three-step process for rejecting it. I begin in Part 2 by reconstructing the asymmetry argument into three main premises. I then turn in Parts 3-5 to explain how each of these premises is in fact false. Finally, I conclude in Part 6 by considering the relationship between the asymmetry argument and the quality of life argument in Benatar's overall case for anti-natalism and argue that it is the latter argument that is actually doing the work. In this sense, the asymmetry argument is not only unsuccessful in generating Benatar's anti-natalist conclusion, it is also unnecessary as well.
在这篇文章中，我重新审视了大卫·本纳特（David Benatar）反生育主义的主要论据——不对称论证，并概述了拒绝该论证的三个步骤。我在第 2 部分首先将不对称论证重构为三个主要前提。然后，在第 3-5 部分，我将解释这些前提中的每一个实际上是如何错误的。最后，在第 6 部分，我考虑了不对称论证与本纳特反生育主义整体案例中生活质量论证之间的关系，并认为是后者的论证在起作用。从这个意义上说，不对称论证不仅没有成功地产生本纳特的反生育主义结论，而且也是不必要的。
