329. What Good is Pessimism? feat. David Benatar

Sep 8, 2023

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Humans have a tendency to see the glass as half full. What arguments can be made on behalf of the half-empty perspective? Whether it's evaluating your life or making decisions about becoming a parent, viewing things through a pessimistic lens could ultimately help reduce suffering in the world.

David Benatar is a professor of philosophy and director of the Bioethics Centre at the University of Cape Town. He is also the author of several books. His latest book, titled The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions, explores the meaningfulness of life.

David and Greg discuss optimism versus pessimism and the positive and negative qualities that they both possess. David talks about suicide and the historic and where our views on it have evolved from. David and Greg talk about the ethics of having children, what true immortality would really mean, and how to get the most out of our time on the hedonic treadmill of life.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

General broad pessimism is a product of the clear-eyed view

48:48: General broad pessimism is a product of the clear-eyed view. If you look at the human condition realistically, you're going to reach unhappy conclusions about all the things I've said that you should reach unhappy conclusions about. But now the question is, "Well, what do you do with that information?" Do you just become morose? Do you withdraw? What do you do with this information? And one mistake would be to become overly morose about it, to derive no joy, because then what happens is there's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy there where you're making; there's another feedback loop. You're making it actually worse for yourself than it would be if you didn't have that kind of response to the pessimism. At the same time, I don't think you should fall into optimism because now you're going to lose the clear-eyed view. So, what I would say is preserve the clear-eyed pessimistic view but be pragmatic.

Is there a feedback loop between the subjective and the objective?

18:29: If you think your life is better than it is, it objectively becomes a bit better. That doesn't mean it reaches the level you think it's at. It doesn't completely eliminate the gap between the subjective and the objective, but the subjective view makes it a little better. And similarly, when we're speaking about negative evaluation. So, there is that feedback loop.

Life’s meaning doesn’t have to be broad

22:05: I don't think that we should conclude from the absence of that kind of meaning that our lives have no meaning. Because they do have meaning at more micro-levels, and we matter to other people. We can have a positive impact on people and beings around us. And I don't think we should pretend that isn't the case simply because our lives can't have a broader kind of meaning.

On the relationship of quality and meaning of life

13:29: There are different views about what the relationship is between quality and meaning. Some people want to treat meaning as part of the quality of life. Others want to separate it out. There is some value in separating them, but I don't want to be committed to that view. I don't think we need to be.

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