Is It Better To Never Have Been Born? In Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Benatar quotes the Greek tragedian Sophocles (“Never to have been born is best / But if we must see the light, the next best / Is quickly returning whence we came”) and the text of
What Is Negative Responsibility Philosophy? Bernard Williams claims that utilitarianism is committed to a doctrine of “negative responsibility.” The notion of negative responsibility is that an agent is responsible not only for the consequences she produces by her own actions, but that she is also responsible for consequences that she allows to happen by other