BETTER NEVER TO HAVE BEEN BELIEVED: BENATAR ON THE HARM OF EXISTENCE

David Benatar . Better Never To Have Been : The Harm of Coming into Existence ( Oxford : Oxford University

In this book, David Benatar argues that every person is severely harmed by being brought into existence, and that in bringing any person into existence one impermissibly harms that person. His conclusion is not merely that by bringing a person into existence, one harms him. That claim is compatible with the claim that by bringing a person into existence, one also greatly benefits him, and even ...

Better Never To Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence PDF

“First, Do No Harm”: Have the Health Impacts of Government Bills on Tax Legislation Been Assessed in Finland?

As taxation is one of the key public policy domains influencing population health, and as there is a legal, strategic, and programmatic basis for health impact assessment (HIA) in Finland, we analyzed all 235 government bills on tax legislation over the years 2007–2014 to see whether the health impacts of the tax bills had been assessed. We found that health impacts had been assessed for 13 bil...

Better to exist: a reply to Benatar.

A recent exchange on Benatar's book Better never to have been between Doyal and Benatar discusses Benatar's bold claim that people should not be brought into existence. Here, I expand the discussion of original position that the exchange focused on. I also discuss the asymmetries, between benefit and harm and between existence and non-existence, upon which Benatar's bold claim rests. In both di...

Cerebrovascular research: the opportunity has never been better.

IN LESS THAN FIFTY YEARS, cerebrovascular research has changed from a predominantly morphological and clinical descriptive science to one characterized by the use of the tools of modern cellular biology and clinical investigation. In addition, the brain and its blood supply in health and in disease are now recognized as a unique biological entity for which vascular models in other parts of the ...