Can there be such a thing as a good life? Now, don't go all Felicity Kendal and Penelope Keith on me; it's a serious philosophical question. That, at any rate, is the view of David Benatar, who's saying that 'no lives are good enough to count as... good'. We sometimes speak of good lives in comparison to bad ones, but Benatar's argument is that if you ditch the comparison with lives that are worse than the putatively good ones, and just consider these latter in a general way without such comparative preconceptions, there are reasons for concluding that 'human lives fall short on the good things but abound in the bad' and so are not good. He's saying that from the University of Cape Town, and Cape Town is one of the world's more beautiful spots, but leave this comparative point aside.
I'm not going to attempt an adjudication of Benatar's question here, although I'm strongly predisposed to the view he opposes: that is to say, I think there can be, and are, good lives. But I want to think further about the question (which hadn't previously occurred to me, since I took it for granted that there are good lives). I will just note that, with some of the arguments he puts forward, Benatar skews things in favour of the claim he's trying to prove. Here's one example of that:
Consider pleasures and pains. Most lives contain both, to varying degrees, but there is an unfortunate asymmetry between these that seems to apply to even the best of lives. The upshot of this is that there is much more pain than pleasure. For example, while the most intense pleasures, such as sexual or gustatory ones, are short-lived, the worst pains have the capacity to be much more enduring. Indeed, pleasures in general tend to be shorter-lived than pains. Chronic pain is common, whereas there is no such thing as chronic pleasure. Moreover, the worst pains seem to be worse than the best pleasures are good. Anybody who doubts this should consider what choice they would make if they were offered the option of securing an hour of the most sublime pleasures possible in exchange for suffering an hour of the worst pain possible. Almost everybody would put much more emphasis on the avoidance of this pain, even if it entailed the forfeiture of the pleasure.
As it strikes me, this is false to the lived experience of many people for much of the time - who are neither in intense pain nor enjoying exquisite pleasure. The overall quantities and qualities within a long duration of time for them aren't yielded by comparing the extremes of pleasure and pain. They will feel good or bad or something in between, be happy and enjoying themselves, or in discomfort or worrying about something, for extended periods; and nothing Benatar says in the quoted passage establishes that the balance must always be negative. The same goes for what he proceeds to say about severe injuries. There's no computation by him of how common they are or how many lives they affect.
Again, take this passage:
On some views the good life is constituted not only of pleasure and fulfilled desires, but also of certain purportedly objective goods such as knowledge, understanding, aesthetic appreciation and virtue. It is noteworthy, however, that as advanced as some of these may be in some humans, they are only a fraction of what they could, in principle, be. Human knowledge and understanding are infinitesimal.
So now he, Benatar, is insisting on a comparative view. But it's not clear why this comparison need always mar the would-be goodness of a good life. Suppose you know loads about the plays of William Shakespeare. Why must the benefits you get from that - whatever they may be - be in any way affected by your ignorance of something that might be known by a more intelligent species about some deeply obscure physical properties of the universe?
I'm not convinced, therefore, even if there are likely to be aspects of the question I haven't yet considered. (Via.)