-Henry Miller, La sabiduría del corazón.
“No aspiro a alcanzar la inmortalidad a través de mi obra…sino simplemente no muriendo.”
-Woody Allen.
David Benatar es profesor de filosofía en la universidad de Ciudad del Cabo, Sudáfrica. Es famoso fundamentalmente por su postura antinatalista. Ya le entrevistamos aquí en su momento acerca de esa cuestión a propósito de su libro Better Never to Have Been. La tesis central del libro de David Benatar es que venir a este mundo es siempre un daño y que todos hemos sufrido un perjuicio por haber sido traídos a la existencia. Por ello defiende una postura anti-natalista, es decir procrear es causar un daño y está mal moralmente: no se debe tener hijos. Uno no debe nunca traer un niño al mundo por el supuesto bien de ese niño. Además, su punto de vista no es aplicable sólo a los seres humanos sino a todos los seres sintientes. Aunque no podamos decir que no existir sea bueno, sí podemos decir que existir es malo.
En esta ocasión ha tenido la amabilidad de volver a concedernos una entrevista a propósito de su libro El Dilema Humano, publicado recientemente por Alianza Editorial, una traducción de su libro The Human Predicament. A Candid Guide to Life Biggest Questions, de 2017. Es un libro donde se abordan las grandes preguntas de la vida y la condición humana, básicamente si la vida tiene sentido. Y la respuesta de Benatar no es muy alentadora: “Sostengo que las respuestas (correctas) a las grandes preguntas de la vida revelan que la condición humana es un dilema trágico del que no hay forma de escapar. Resumido en una frase: la vida es mala pero también lo es la muerte. Los capítulos del libro abordan cuestiones tan trascendentales como el sentido de la vida, la muerte, la inmortalidad o el suicidio.
Con respecto al sentido de la vida entiende el sentido de la vida como trascender los límites. Una vida con sentido es una que trasciende los propios límites e influye significativamente en otros o bien sirve a unos fines que van más allá de uno mismo. Esta cuestión, por tanto, se puede abordar desde diferentes perspectivas. Una es la que llama sub specie hominis, es decir si la vida tiene sentido desde la perspectiva del individuo. La pregunta en este caso sería si la vida de alguien tiene sentido desde la perspectiva de otro, es decir, si esta personas influye de forma suficientemente positiva en otra para hacer que la vida de la primera tenga sentido desde la perspectiva de la segunda. Desde esta perspectiva hay buenas noticias, la mayoría de nosotros influye al menos en otra persona. Otra perspectiva es la que llama sub especie communitatis, es decir, si nuestra vida influye en un grupo humano. Aquí también tenemos buenas noticias porque la mayoría influimos en amigos y familiares y podemos decir que nuestra vida tiene sentido contemplada de esta manera. Otra perspectiva es la llamada sub especie humanitaria, es decir que la vida de una persona tenga sentido para toda la humanidad. No es algo al alcance de la mayoría pero sí hay personas que han tenido una gran influencia en toda la humanidda: Einstein, Alexander Fleming, Buda, etc. Por último, tendríamos el sentido sub specie aeternitatis. Aquí las noticias son malas, la vida no tiene sentido en esta enfoque “cósmico”, nuestra vida es totalmente indiferente para el universo y no vamos a tener ninguna influencia en él. Vamos a quedarnos con lo positivo, que nuestra vida puede tener sentido desde algunas perspectivas. En una terminología diferentes, que no es la que usa Benatar, podríamos hablar del sentido de la vida y del sentido en la vida. La vida en un sentido amplio no tiene sentido pero podemos tener un sentido en la vida.
Otro capítulo de la vida está dedicado al tema de la muerte y un apartado muy interesante está dedicado a la cuestión de si la vida es mala para el que se muere. Os remito a esta entrada de mi blog donde resumo la postura de Benatar. Otro capítulo está dedicado a la inmortalidad. La muerte es mala pero la inmortalidad podría ser todavía peor o por lo menos tremendamente aburrida, como planteó el filósofo Bernard Williams. El último capítulo está dedicado al suicidio y analiza la cuestión de si el suicidio puede ser racional.
La conclusión del libro es que el dilema humano es, de hecho, un dilema inhumano por lo espantoso, es decir, estamos entre la espada y la pared. La vida es mala pero también lo es la muerte.
Pero para no acabar de forma tan dramática merece la pena recordar que David Benatar es también autor de un estupendo libro: El Segundo Sexismo. Es un estupendo libro donde Benatar trata con la solidez y rigurosidad que le caracterizan, las desventajas y discriminaciones que sufren los hombres. Así que también le hemos hecho un par de preguntas sobre el tema. Muy agradecidos a David por su amabilidad, os dejamos con la entrevista.
In english:
1.- We would like to start with a thought experiment based on something of your invention. You mention in passing in your book that there are real and imaginary organisms in which nociceptive pathways detect and transmit harmful stimuli that generate a response without the need for pain. This occurs perhaps in plants and in simple organisms. We can also imagine beings much more rational than humans in which nociception and aversive response would be mediated by a rational faculty rather than by a capacity to feel pain. What is relevant is that in these beings a harmful stimulus would be received but not felt. Now imagine that the evolution of the human being goes in that direction and that we can -technologically or otherwise- end all kind of pain. And even that we discover chronic pleasure. You say also that a life without pain is not a human life but imagine that we become this new species of Homo analgesis. Would you be antinatalist in this painless world? Would you think that H. analgesis´s life would be good and worth living? Would H. analgesis be free of the human prediment?
You are asking whether a rational sentient being, incapable of feeling pain, but who does feel significant pleasure would be free of the predicament that humans currently face. The condition of the beings you envisage would obviously be much less bad than the condition of humans. However, there are evils other than pain that can and do befall people. This is especially true on non-hedonistic accounts of well-being. Even according to a hedonistic account, the kind of beings you imagine could die, and thereby be deprived, by death, of further pleasures.
2.- We agree that life in a “cosmic sense” has no meaning but do you think that more earthly or parochial meanings (individual or familiar meanings) are enough to live a good life? Is it possible to live a “good enough life” being cosmically irrelevant?
A “good enough life” seems to be a claim about the quality of life. According to many taxonomies, life’s meaning is separate from its quality. According to such taxonomies there is no tension at all between thinking that a life with (only) parochial meaning could nonetheless have a (relatively) good quality. However, it is worth noting that the phrase “a good enough life” (my emphasis), invites the question “good enough for what?”. I don’t see any problem in saying that many lives are, at least temporarily, good enough to continue living. I just don’t think that any lives are “good enough” to start.
3.- The discussion in chapter 5 about the question of when is death bad for the one who dies is very interesting. We are more on the side of Epicurus. You claim that if we accept the epicurean view we should change our values and for example we should rethink if painless homicide is bad. It would be the harm to the family and friends enough to condemn this kind of homicide?
I addressed this very issue in the The Human Predicament. I said that it would be “hard to justify taking murder quite as seriously as we do if its badness consists only in what it does to those who are left behind”. I then offered various thoughts in support of this claim.
4.- When you discuss the asymmetry problem and Lucretius you say that it is not possible for a person to be born before the actual moment when she was born. But perhaps it is also true that we cannot die later (or sooner) than when we do. There are genetic factors that influence whether we suffer a heart attack or dementia, and as for environmental factors, it is true that if a certain person had not drunk so much alcohol or had a different diet or lifestyle, he or she would have enjoyed greater longevity. Yes, but that person would have had to be very different to have behaved differently, another person really. What do you think? Can we die at a different time (before or after) than when we do?
First, I do not say “that it is not possible for a person to be born before the actual moment when she was born” (my emphasis). Instead, I am of the view that a person could not have come into existence “much earlier” than when he or she did come into existence. Second, I deny your claim that a person who led a healthier life would have been an entirely different person. Your view of personal identity leaves too little flexibility for the preservation of a person’s identity conditions. For example, we can say quite meaningfully that an alcoholic’s life would have gone better if he had not consumed so much alcohol. That implies that it would still have been his life. He would not have been a different person (in anything other than a metaphorical sense) if he had imbibed less.
5.- If life is the problem why death is not the solution? or at least the best solution at hand? No life, no pain? Is it because the annihilation problem?
When we come into existence we become vulnerable to harm, including death. It is better never to be. However, once we come into existence, we have an interest in continuing to exist. Sometimes that interest can be overridden by an interest in avoiding serious harms other than death that are avoidably only by death, but life has to have become very bad in order for death to be the lesser of two evils.
6.- Can you tell us something positive, uplifting or encouraging for us to take the human predicament and live our lives in the best possible way?
While the human predicament is an unfortunate one, some lives are clearly worse than others. As bad as your life may be, it could (almost) always be worse. Moreover, we can react to our predicament in better and worse ways. While it would have been better never to have been, once we are here we should strive to do the least amount of harm, to improve our own lives and those of others where we can, and to create as much meaning as we can, despite the obvious limits on our capacity to generate to meaning.
7.- If you don’t mind, we would like to make two questions about the problems you tackled in your book The Second Sexism. The first question would be how did you become interested in this topic. Secondly, it seems that the empathy for the disadvantages and discriminations that men suffer has not increased since you published your book. Why do you think this is so? Do you think this could change in the near future? What is needed for this change in empathy to occur?
I became interested in this topic because it is a greatly neglected truth. While anti-female sexism is now widely recognized, sexism against males is either ignored or vehemently denied. You are quite correct that nothing has changed since I published my book. There are many reasons for this. One important reason is that the book has been widely ignored, especially by the very people most in need of reading it. However, even if it were read more widely, it is difficult for one book to compete against an avalanche of media propagating the view that females are the only victims of sexism. I am not optimistic that this will change anytime soon. For it to change, the facts and arguments in my book would have to reach a much larger audience and also be taken up by others.
8 - What are you working on now? In what topics or questions are now interested?
I am completing a book on ethical problems confronted by ordinary people in everyday life. These are not ethical problems in law or public policy. Nor are they the problems that people face in their professional capacities, or the problems that ordinary people encounter only rarely in their lives. They are ethical issues that they face often. They include ethical questions about sex, forgiveness, bullshit, humour, language, and the duties of individuals towards animals and the environment.
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