Wednesday 12 January 2011

To be or not to have been




Richard Dawkins, the great scientist and author, says that “To live at all is miracle enough”.
He also thinks we are the winners of a certain lottery, despite our end being rather miserable.
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born”.

Is he right that living is better than non-living, even if you have never and will never live. He may as well be right, but not before this is thoroughly discussed? After all, the Buddhists and Schopenhauer have pointed out (as if we did not know anyway) that life is intrinsically connected with suffering. Is it better not to have ever lived and not to suffer or be alive and in pain (as one must be sooner or later)? That’s the rub.

Do not worry. However you answer the question, children are still going to be born. Women still want to have children at some point of their lives.

But the question: “to be or not to have ever been” is an entirely practical one. If Dawkins is right, then vegetarians are wrong. Animals may be killed in slaughterhouses, but many of then would not have even been born, if they had not been bred for meat. However cruelly they are butchered, they are still quite lucky. But if Dawkins is wrong and vegetarians are right, then breeding animals for meat not only increases their number, but also the amount of their suffering.