David Benatar vs. John Gray (philosopher)
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
David Benatar
1966 – present
David Benatar is a South African philosopher, academic, and author. He is best known for his work in moral philosophy and for advancing the position of antinatalism, the view that coming into existence is a serious harm. He is the author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006), in which he argues that procreation is always morally wrong because it imposes harm by bringing sentient beings into existence.
"Instead of steering between optimism and pessimism, one can embrace the pessimistic view, but navigate its currents in one’s life. It is possible to be an unequ…"
John Gray (philosopher)
1948 – present
John Nicholas Gray is an English political philosopher and author with interests in analytic philosophy, the history of ideas and philosophical pessimism. He retired in 2008 as School Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Gray contributes regularly to The Guardian, UnHerd, The Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman, where he is the lead book reviewer.
"The basis of the method is a belief in natural uniformity – if two events are regularly connected in our observations we can conclude that they obey a universal…"
Connections
Both wrote about: