The oldest, strangest verdict in philosophy, that it might be better never to have been born.
Long before the word existed, the wisest voices of the ancient world kept arriving at the same strange verdict, that it might be better never to have been born at all.
This episode follows that thought across the centuries, from a captured satyr and the chorus of a Greek tragedy to the systematic pessimism of Schopenhauer, who made suffering the ground note of existence. From there it moves through the strangest corners of the tradition, a philosopher who imagined a God who chose to die, a Norwegian who called consciousness an evolutionary mistake, and a sleepless Romanian who turned despair into aphorism.
At its center stands the modern argument that made the idea respectable again, David Benatar's claim that coming into existence is always a harm, with the questions of consent, suffering, and the harm we do woven around it. Along the way it gives the other side a full hearing, including its greatest adversary, the thinker who answered the ancient verdict by daring to love his fate.
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00:00:00 The Wisdom of Silenus
00:11:46 A Word for the Position
00:17:51 The Wheel of Rebirth
00:26:10 The Best of All Possible Worlds
00:32:41 The Philosopher of the Will
00:44:05 Better Not to Be
00:51:50 The God Who Died
00:58:16 The Last Messiah
01:07:36 The Trouble with Being Born
01:14:19 The Asymmetry
01:27:26 The Pollyanna in the Mind
01:32:57 The Question No One Was Asked
01:42:05 The Sum of Suffering
01:53:37 The Harm We Do
02:02:29 Consciousness, the Malignant Gift
02:08:36 A Line of Poets
02:17:31 The Man Who Said Yes
02:28:48 Why Not Simply Die
02:34:43 The Case Against
02:43:18 The Silence We Choose
02:50:03 The Compassion Core
02:58:35 The Verdict Returns
Sleepy Philosophy Radio makes longform, carefully researched philosophy written as a serious essay and paced for rest.
All research and writing is done personally. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.
