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Better Never To Have Been
''Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence'' is a 2006 book by South African philosopher David Benatar, best known for being associated with antinatalism and philosophical pessimism. The book was preceded by Benatar's 1997 paper "Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence", where he expounded on what would eventually become the book's major concepts. Summary ''Better Never to Have Been'' directly concerns Benatar's antinatalist philosophy: sentient beings are harmed when they are brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate. He derives this conclusion from two arguments: an asymmetry between good and bad things, such as pleasure and pain, and the view that human beings have an unreliable assessment of life's quality. Asymmetry between pleasure and pain Benatar argues that there is what he calls an asymmetry between good and bad things, such as pleasure and pain: # the absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by any ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Benatar
David Benatar (born 8 December 1966) is a South Africa, South African philosopher, Academy, academic and author. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism in his book ''Better Never to Have Been, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence'', in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings. Early life and education Benatar is the son of Solomon Benatar, a global-health expert who founded the Bioethics Centre at the University of Cape Town. Not much is known about Benatar's personal life as he deliberately guards his privacy. He has held antinatalist views since his childhood. Academic career Benatar is professor of philosophy and director of the Bioethics Centre at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a member of the editorial board of the ''Journ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David DeGrazia
David DeGrazia (born July 20, 1962) is an American moral philosopher specializing in bioethics and animal ethics. He is Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, where he has taught since 1989, and the author or editor of several books on ethics, including ''Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status'' (1996), ''Human Identity and Bioethics'' (2005), and ''Creation Ethics: Reproduction, Genetics, and Quality of Life'' (2012). Selected publications Books *''Creation Ethics: Reproduction, Genetics, and Quality of Life''. Oxford University Press, 2012. *''Human Identity and Bioethics''. Cambridge University Press, 2005. *''Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction''. Oxford University Press, 2002. *with Thomas Mappes and Jeffrey Brand-Ballard (eds.). ''Biomedical Ethics''. McGraw-Hill, 2011. *''Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status''. Cambridge University Press, 1996. *with Thomas Mappes and Jane Zembaty (eds.). ''Social Ethics: Morality and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Books
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras ( BCE), although this theory is disputed by some. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. in . Historically, ''philosophy'' encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a ''philosopher''."The English word "philosophy" is first attested to , meaning "knowledge, body of knowledge." "natural philosophy," which began as a discipline in ancient India and Ancient Greece, encompasses astronomy, medicine, and physics. For example, Newton's 1687 ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'' later became classified as a book of physics. In the 19th century, the growth of modern University, researc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University Press Books
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world; it has buildings in every style of English architecture since late Anglo-Saxon. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, information technology and science. History The history of Oxford in England dates back to its original settlement in the Saxon period. Originally of strategic significance due to its controlling location on the upper reaches of the River Thames at its junction with the River Cherwell, the town grew in national importance during the early Norman period, and in the late 12th century became home to the fledgling University of Oxford. The city was besieged during The Anarchy in 1142. The university rose to domina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethics Books
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory. Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are: # Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined; # Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action; # Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English-language Books
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots language, Scots, and then closest related to the Low German, Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is Genetic relationship (linguistics), genealogically West Germanic language, West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by Langues d'oïl, dialects of France (about List of English words of French origin, 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2006 Non-fiction Books
6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second smallest composite number, behind 4; its proper divisors are , and . Since 6 equals the sum of its proper divisors, it is a perfect number; 6 is the smallest of the perfect numbers. It is also the smallest Granville number, or \mathcal-perfect number. As a perfect number: *6 is related to the Mersenne prime 3, since . (The next perfect number is 28.) *6 is the only even perfect number that is not the sum of successive odd cubes. *6 is the root of the 6-aliquot tree, and is itself the aliquot sum of only one other number; the square number, . Six is the only number that is both the sum and the product of three consecutive positive numbers. Unrelated to 6's being a perfect number, a Golomb ruler of length 6 is a "perfect ruler". Six is a con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rust Cohle
Rustin Spencer "Rust" Cohle is a fictional character portrayed by Matthew McConaughey in the first season of the HBO's anthology television series ''True Detective''. He works as a homicide detective for the Louisiana State Police (LSP) alongside his partner Martin "Marty" Hart, portrayed by Woody Harrelson. The season follows Cohle and Hart's hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana across 17 years. The character of Rust Cohle and Matthew McConaughey's performance have gained critical acclaim. McConaughey received a Critics' Choice Television Award and nominations for a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance. Character overview Cohle is introduced as a gifted, but deeply troubled, detective from Texas who is transferred from working on regional drug task force to LSP near the end of 1994. After three months, in January 1995, he and Hart are tasked with investigating a series of brutal, bizarre murders. A haunted, solitary c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nic Pizzolatto
Nicholas Austin Pizzolatto (born October 18, 1975) is an American writer, producer and director. He is best known for creating the HBO crime drama series ''True Detective''. Early life Pizzolatto was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is of Italian people, Italian descent. Pizzolatto grew up poor in a working-class Roman Catholicism, Catholic family in New Orleans. At age five, he and his family moved to a rural area of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Pizzolato graduated from Lake Charles' St. Louis Catholic High School in 1993 and left home when he was 17. Pizzolato attended Louisiana State University on a visual arts scholarship. He graduated from LSU with a Bachelor of Arts, B.A. in English and philosophy. Pizzolatto gave up writing following the death of a writing mentor and moved to Austin, Texas, where he worked as a bartender and technical writer for four years. He later enrolled in an Master of Fine Arts, MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas, and recei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
True Detective
''True Detective'' is an American anthology crime drama television series created and written by Nic Pizzolatto. The series, broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States, premiered on January 12, 2014. Each season of the series is structured as a self-contained narrative, employing new cast ensembles, and following various sets of characters and settings. The first season, starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles, takes place in Louisiana and follows a pair of Louisiana State Police detectives, and their pursuit of a serial killer with occult links over a 17-year period. The second season aired in 2015, starring Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Kelly Reilly, and Vince Vaughn, is set in California, and focuses on three detectives from three cooperating police departments and a criminal-turned-businessman as they investigate a series of crimes they believe are linked to the murder of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yujin Nagasawa
Yujin Nagasawa (born 23 June 1975) is a Japanese-born British philosopher specialising in the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of mind and applied philosophy. Nagasawa is H.G. Wood Professor of the Philosophy of Religion (formerly known as H. G. Wood Professor of Theology) at the University of Birmingham. He is also former president of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and Co-Director of the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion. He is best known for his work on the nature and existence of God and the problem of consciousness. Early life and education Nagasawa was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied philosophy and applied mathematics at Stony Brook University in the United States and received his PhD from the Australian National University (ANU) in 2004. Career From 2004 to 2005 he was Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alberta, Canada and Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antinatalism
Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth in defense of antinatalism. Some of the earliest surviving formulations of the idea that it would be better not to have been born can be found in ancient Greece. The term antinatalism is in opposition to the term natalism, pronatalism or pro-natalism, and was used probably for the first time as the name of the position by Théophile de Giraud in his book ''L'art de guillotiner les procréateurs: Manifeste anti-nataliste''. The most prominent recent arguments in favor of antinatalism have been put forward by South African philosopher David Benatar. Arguments In religion Buddhism The teaching of the Buddha, among other Four Noble Truths and the beginning of Mahāvagga, is interpreted by Hari Singh Gour as follows: The issue of Bud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
