The Human Predicament by David Benatar - Thoughts, Highlights, Etc.

0. Sources

1. David Benatar, Oxford University Press, “The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions” - 2017-06-07

NOTE

• The main headers (except Sources) correspond to specific chapters in the book. The current approach I’m employing for this book is to break down/summarize/paraphase/interpret and individually examine each chapter

1. Introduction

Last updated: 13 Dec 2025

1.0. Main Ideas of the Book

• The book focuses on questions revolving around life and death: does life have meaning? is being alive worth it considering that we are going to die? and how should we respond to death?
  • The book puts forward that the answer to these questions are grim because being a living human is tragic in that you are forced to face awful conditions—life and death.
• Although the book has a pessimistic view on life and death, it focuses on bringing comfort to those who share the same views by providing good arguments and helping them recognize that there are others who also hold the same perspective (considering that the perspective is largely unpopular). It also strives to give ways to cope with reality without believing in a delusion.
• Main ideas of the book:
  • Our lives are insignificant from the perspective of the universe; our lives are only meaningful to one another.
  • Our quality of life, even the best ones, contain more bad¹ than good in its totality.
  • Life being bad doesn’t necessitate that death is good. This book suggests that both life and death are bad. Death exacerbates the badness of existence because in exchange for eliminating suffering caused by life, we trade our limited attainable meaning by freeing our consciousness.²
  • Some people cope with the tragedy of death by believing in the afterlife, while others cope by believing that immortality will someday be possible. While plenty of scenarios imply that immortality is bad, having an option to be immortal can possibly be good in some cases, and not having that option is part of the problem with living as a human being.
    • If people don’t want to accept the harsh reality, what are valid reasons for challenging their coping mechanisms?
      • Some can perpetuate the human predicament by supporting optimistic view of the human condition (i.e., positive view of human life, therefore it is good to have more children that will also suffer from the human predicament)
      • The book argues that it can lead people to religions with harmful and discriminatory views. Benatar doesn’t claim that all religious people are bad and all secular people are good: good and tolerant religious people exist and bad agnostic/atheists also exist.
      • Damage caused by optimists isn’t necessarily extreme (like murdering/torturing dissenters), but can sometimes be undeservingly harsh/unfair to pessimists who are just being honest and reasonable. The vice versa is true: pessimists can sometimes treat optimists in a harmful way. The book generally advises an approach that is harmless, that is, don’t force people who are not open to changing their minds.
  • The response to the human predicament (cosmic meaninglessness and poor quality of life and loss of meaning and consciousness through death) is not limited to suicide.

1.1. Distinction between Pessimism and Optimism

• This book argues that it is difficult to tell which view is optimistic and which one is pessimistic, primarily because of how it can be interpreted based on the domain.
  • Is it optimistic or pessimistic: the book holds the view that immortality would be bad because it will be tedious. Although it has a negative evaluation of immortality, does it imply that it has a positive/optimistic evaluation of mortality?
    • The book’s usage of optimism and pessimism entail that this view is optimistic
• Domains highlighting the disagreements between pessimists and optimists
  • Realm of facts. In terms of the future, optimists believe that the bad outcome will not happen whereas pessimists believe that the bad outcome will happen. In terms of the past/present, optimists believe that a bad situation didn’t happen or is not happening while pessimists believe that the bad situation did happen/is happening
  • Evaluation of facts. In the case of a glass with liquid filling half of its contents, optimists praise the state of affairs because of what remains while pessimists mourns it because of what could have remained.
• The book’s usage of the terms:
  • optimism → positive facts/evaluation of human condition (life and death)
  • pessimism → negative facts/evaluation of human condition (life and death)
• Implications of the term usage:
  • Some features of the human condition can have a pessimistic view, while an optimistic view on others. The overall view is based on the aggregate view of each feature
  • optimism and pessimisms are described through degrees and instead of binary states
  • the pessimistic view ultimately reflects reality more accurately than the optimistic one.
• The pessimistic view is unpopular because it is hard to accept. The need to repeat optimistic narratives/beliefs is telling of how they are insufficient responses to questions about life, death, and meaning—they are believed not because they are true, rather to cope with tragic reality.
• The human condition is often described as the human predicament because the answers to questions revolving around life, death, and meaning is not impossible to answer but very hard to accept.

1.2. Human Predicament Vs. Animal Predicament

• The reason the book differentiates the human predicament from the animal one, despite acknowledging that sentient animals also suffer and die, is because of one crucial feature present in humans but not in animals: humans can reflect about life’s purpose and consider suicide to a degree that animals cannot.
• The practical reason is just that most humans just don’t care about whether the lives of animals are meaningful or not

2. Meaning

Last updated: 15 Dec 2025

• It is common to be concerned that our lives our meaningless because of the following reasons:
  • It doesn’t have a significant effect on the universe because our individual lives are small and very short
  • Our existence is very unlikely and coincidental. We could have not been born or a different person might have been born instead of us. In this regard, we could say that it is not certain that we would have existed in this world.
  • In contrast to our lives, our deaths are certain or guaranteed to happen someday.
  • We do a lot of mundane activities to help achieve a much larger goal, however, achieving those goals only yields more goals and, thereby, prolonging the repetitive cycle of mundane activities until we die.
    • Even if we die, we will still continue the endless cycle of creating and pursuing goals if we have children (until our species go extinct).
  • Why is our larger goals in life even important considering that it will just lead to other goals (it has no end)? We meaninglessly achieve goals just to loop back to the start and pursue goals again.
  • Even if we had larger goals, which may even be carried out by others (like family and the future generation), it will one day all be gone. The rest of the accumulated meaning throughout our lives will ultimately be for nothing after we all die.
• Despite the book’s position on being pessimistic with respect to the important meaning of life, it still supports the idea that some meaning are still achievable.
• The author maintains that although are life are meaningless from a cosmic perspective, it can be meaningful from a more limited perspective.
  • Nonetheless, the author also holds that because humans seek for more meaning in life, it is tragic that most people will inevitably only be meaningful from a really limited perspective.

2.0. Analyzing the Questions concerning Life’s Meaning

• Different ways to interpret the question “Does life have meaning?”:
  • Does life have significance? I think this is concerned with the cosmic and ultimate reason for the existence of living beings. For example, life was made because the universe needed it for a particular reason
  • Is life important? I think this is concerned with value that governs our interactions with others. Like is life so important that we can’t just carelessly take it away
  • Does life have a purpose? There are also two ways of interpreting this question:
    • Is there a reason why you exist? I think this is concerned with something like the set of circumstances (e.g., your parents met each other and got married, etc.) which led to your existence
    • Does your life serve a purpose? I think this is concerned with why you are alive (e.g., to become the next head of the clan/family, to help others, to contribute to the country, etc.)
• The book’s response to “does life have meaning?” is focused on making a significant difference.³ In other words, life’s meaningfulness to the book is defined by its capacity to transcend limits.
  • This raises some concerns considering that the most meaningful lives in this context/definition are the lives of vile people (like Hitler and Stalin)
    • Two ways of responding to this concern: (a) we should only strive for good meaningful lives or (b) we should only consider life meaningful if it transcends limits in a positive way
  • Life’s value should also be separate from its meaningfulness: life can be valuable without it having to be meaningful; otherwise, that would entail that murder is not immoral. Therefore, all lives are valuable but not all lives are meaningful
  • objective meaning of life ≠ subjective meaning of life. One can have a meaningless life objectively, but a meaningful life personally (and vice versa).⁴
  • The book uses meaninglessness and absurdity interchangeably, that is, a person with an absurd life has life which does not transcend limits or leave a mark but still act like it does.⁵

2.1. Different Perspective on Meaning

The meaningfulness/meaninglessness of life can be judged based on the following perspectives:

Perspective	Description
sub specie aeternitatis	From the perspective of the universe
sub specie humanitatis	From the perspective of humanity
sub specie communitatis	From the perspective of human groups of different sizes (like nations, communities, etc.)
sub specie hominis	From the perspective of individuals

• Meaningfulness is not judged as binary, rather in degrees
• Scope of the term life can be an individual life, humanity, or all lives including animals and etc.
• Subjective meaning differs from objective meaning. The former refers to what the meaningfulness as felt by the person, while the latter refers to the meaningfulness based on the perspectives and required conditions, irrespective of what the subject feels
  • Subjectivists argue that meaning is only made up of the subjective feeling, however, a variant of the Sisyphus story illustrates why a life can feel meaningful despite being meaningless—the Gods plants an impulse for Sisyphus to enjoy rolling the stone despite it being a meaningless pursuit
  • Objectivists should also consider that a life can feel meaningless but be very meaningful
  • The hybrid view proposed by Susan Wolf argues that meaning arises from the intersection between objective and subjective forms of meaning. The book rejects this view claiming that there are unsatisfying but meaningful lives
• The author believes that some objective meaning are somewhat attainable with respect to the three perspectives: sub specie humanitatis, sub specie communitatis, and sub specie hominis
  • Meaning sub specie hominis:
    • 1st interpretation: meaning concerns positive impact on another individual(s)
    • 2nd interpretation: meaning deals with how much the person is able to get closer to their set significant goals
  • Meaning sub specie communitatis:
    • Meaning in this perspective can be attained by being valuable/meaningful (positively and significantly influential) to one’s family or other human groups like communities, nations, etc.
    • Meaningfulness (capacity to transcend limits and make a mark) should not be equated or measured with recognition. One person can be widely recognized but does not leave much of a mark; conversely, one person can be unpopular/unknown despite having a significant impact on certain community
  • Meaning sub specie humanitatis:
    • Meaning from this perspective can be achieved by making a massive difference to humanity to the point that it affects humanity, like Alexander Fleming’s discovery of the first antibiotic which saved countless of lives
    • It is wrong to argue that because one is meaningful to the more limited perspectives (hominis and communitatis), they ultimately are meaningful to humanity. They shouldn’t be conflated because what is significant to the individuals/communities may not be significant to humanity.⁶

3. Meaninglessness

Last updated: 29 Dec 2025

Note to Self

Consider revisiting and possibly revising this chapter in the future. Some parts feel like they did not articulate the ideas well and correctly

David Benatar

It is similarly difficult to get somebody to understand something when the meaning of his life depends on his not understanding it.

Friedrich Nietzsche

He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how⁷

• From the cosmic perspective, sub specie aeternitatis, our lives are meaningless in that it cannot meaningfully impact it.
• Our lives are also meaningless because all lives will inevitably end; therefore, all the accumulated meaning from our actions will nonetheless be for naught.
• Humans naturally reject this horror vacui (meaning vacuum) and cope by ignoring it or its significance.

3.0. Theistic Perspective of Meaning

• Theism and associated doctrines argue that life serves a purpose beyond the universe, a divine purpose tied to God’s ultimate plan.
• Although this has been criticized for feeling like a plan that treats humans as a means to an end, theists retorted by claiming that God created each human for a positive and noble reason.
• Oftentimes, however, the specific “noble” reason is not explicitly stated.
  • When a noble reason is provided, it is usually unsatisfying, such as “we were born to love and serve God”, which implies that God is narcissistic since they created lives meant for serving them.
  • Another proposed positive purpose would be that God created each one of us for a unique reason. An issue raised here is that if one was born to help another person, and the other person was made to help the one, their reason for living would be pretty circular and irrational—in other words, the problem could have been solved by not creating us in the first place.
  • Another suggested reason would be that living beings were created to prepare them for the afterlife, ideally eternal bliss. However, that desire and need would not exist if they were not born in the first place, making the justification not very satisfying.
• One important feature of the human predicament is that even if our lives hypothetically had cosmic meaning and we are just unable to discern it, we still have to suffer the uncertainty of our significance in the universe.
• It is difficult to argue that the world is created by a beneficent deity considering that there are a lot of morbid meaningless suffering: if the beneficent deity can make it so that animals don’t cause other animals great suffering for them to not starve, they would design the world that way.
  • Humans typically don’t even try to attribute those animals who suffered from painful deaths and experiences (such as factory farming) any cosmic meaning.
• Some theists claim that the idea of life being meaningless is tied to atheism, therefore atheism is wrong: religion gives you purpose. However, disbelief in human’s cosmic meaning is not an essential principle for atheism. Furthermore, it also implies that many theists are unable to face the implications of atheism even if they may possibly be true.

3.1. Secular Arguments Seeking Relief from Cosmic Meaninglessness

3.1.0. Nature’s “purposes”

• Stephen Law claims that nature gave us the purpose to reproduce and carry our genes to the next generation. This fails to address the issue of cosmic meaninglessness considering that this is cosmic but of terrestrial scope.
• Stephen Law’s proposal also fails to shake off the discomfort of meaninglessness because it does not feel satisfying to hear that our purpose is only to reproduce.
• This argument is a causal explanation, not a purposive explanation. It mischaracterizes purpose because purpose implies a goal which a process aims to achieve. From a broad perspective, reproducing does not have a goal. Nature is a blind process that doesn’t have a reason for designing life to be inclined to pass on their genetics for generations.
  • We know how we evolved to exist but not why we were brought into existence (from a cosmic perspective).

3.1.1. Meaning from Being the Most Valuable in the Universe

• Guy Kahane argues that because we possess the most value in the universe (as a result of everything else having no value due to being lifeless), we are cosmically significant.
  • According to them, our sentience (capacity to experience pain and pleasure), maybe also our intelligence, underlies our value⁸
  • This argument assumes that no other lives exists in the universe (their existence reduces our value) and God doesn’t exist. If God existed, their value would significantly reduce ours to the point that we’ll become cosmically insignificant.
  • Issues with Kahane’s argument, as stated by Benatar:
    • Significance and value aren’t the same thing, therefore an issue arises when using a premise dealing with value to form a conclusion concerned with significance
    • Having the most value does not necessarily mean that it has much value with respect to the universe.⁹
    • The terminology ‘cosmic significance’ is not clearly defined by Dr. Kahane
      • If they are referring to moral significance as a result of us being moral agents, it would be an irrelevant argument because it still doesn’t engage with the existential worries people have, that is, if we have any influence beyond our planet or cosmic time.
    • It might make the term “cosmic significance” not matter much, or will not alleviate people’s existential distress, because it equates our significance to other living beings in our planet (like worms). My actions do not matter because I am cosmically significant just like a worm is cosmically significant for having value as a living being
    • It assumes that our significance depends on our value. Therefore, terrestrially, we are relatively insignificant considering that there are so much life with equal value from a terrestrial perspective.
      • This presupposition entails that our significance due to our capacity to heavily affect and control our planet (as very intelligent living beings) is not-existent, rather our significance relies on the same value every living being in the planet has (even those which do not have much control over the planet)

3.1.2. Undermining the Cosmic Perspective

• Some people undermine the importance of the cosmic perspective (like Thomas Nagel) by stating that because the current situation does not affect the distant future much, what happens in the distant future should also not be a huge concern to us.
  • The main claim of this argument is that it is reasonable to justify actions made for the sake of now and during one’s lifetime—meaning decisions are made not on the basis of after one’s death, but while they are still alive.
  • Benatar rejects this by claiming that what we do now may not matter much now or tomorrow, but will matter much later. Because it matters much later, it instrumentally matters much now. Conversely, things that will not mean much later also do not mean much now.
  • Benatar agrees that doing things which are meaningless in the cosmic perspective is reasonable, but emphasizes that this is irrelevant to the larger existential discussion: yes it makes sense to play the game according to its rules; but the bigger question and issue is why be forced to play the game in the first place (especially if it does not matter to you)?
• Nagel also downplays the concern about the limited nature of life and the meaninglessness of our actions by claiming that the situation would be infinitely be more absurd if we lived for an eternity than if we lived for a limited period of time.
  • Benatar pointed out that, as Robert Nozick states, our actions are motivated by transcending our own limits and fulfilling a purpose beyond our own. If there is no limits, there is no “transcendence” happening or external purpose to fulfill, and, as such, meaning is possible for someone with an end whereas it is impossible for someone immortal.
  • Benatar also states that it the perspective also matters when evaluating whether or not a life is absurd. For instance, removing the temporal limits to life is absurd from a terrestrial perspective, but the opposite from a cosmic perspective.¹⁰¹¹¹²
  • Benatar makes the same point in terms of our size relative to the universe, in which he highlights the fact that our cosmic meaninglessness is more concerned with our spatial limit than our actual size (how much we affect things in terms of space).

3.1.3. Shifting the Focus from Cosmic Meaning to Terrestrial Meaning

• Some philosophers like Peter Singer, ignore the cosmic perspective by focusing more on the terrestrial perspective. For example, Singer recommends finding meaning from transcendent (i.e., beyond our self) causes, like from ethical reasons.
  • Although he is aware of our cosmic insignificance, he believes that actions can be worthwhile despite it not being cosmically significant.
  • Benatar responds to this by stating that this does not alleviate nor address the concern for our cosmic meaninglessness. People who are worried about cosmic meaninglessness already acknowledge that they can do meaningful things from a much narrow perspective (e.g., sub specie humanitatis, sub specie communitatis, sub specie hominis), they just aren’t consoled by this alone.

3.1.4. Sour Grapes

• Benatar categorizes arguments which responds to our cosmic meaninglessness with either “we shouldn’t seek cosmic meaning” or “feel regretful that it is out of our reach” as sour grapes arguments.
• The first sour grapes type of argument is the argument that worrying about the unattainable is a waste of time and will not yield any good”.
  • Benatar contends, however, that it is reasonable to feel regretful about an unattainable thing while also realizing that it is fruitless to try seeking for it.
    • Just like a patient who regrets having a condition while acknowledging that it is pointless to seek for ways to get better knowing that it is unattainable.
    • Nonetheless, Benatar states that the patient may feel reasonably regretful because an alternative situation wherein they avoided the condition is conceivable despite being practically unattainable. In contrast, it is not conceivable for humans to attain cosmic meaning.
• Another argument puts forward that the requirements to alleviate our worries over cosmic meaninglessness is impossible to meet, they are not valid worries.¹³ According to Benatar, there are two reasons why these arguments fail:
  • Firstly, it doesn’t even try to clearly define what it would take for our lives to meaningful from the cosmic perspective
  • Secondly, the conclusion still doesn’t address a core part of the human predicament—cosmic meaninglessness—or provide comfort to the worries about cosmic meaninglessness. Therefore, it is still reasonable to feel regret considering that our lives will never attain cosmic meaning.
• One of the other arguments for the sour grapes argument claims that there is a defect with people who desire cosmic meaning. For instance, Susan Wolf claims that these type of people have “an irrational obsession with permanence”, while Kahane believes that it is narcissistic and embarrassingly megalomaniac for someone to want to be a cosmic celebrity.
  • Benatar retorts this by saying that a megalomaniac would think that they are cosmically significant rather than just desire it. He thinks that people who seek cosmic meaning are labeled megalomaniacs whereas people who seek communal meaning are not because the former’s desires are unattainable.
  • Benatar thinks that just because cosmic meaning is unattainable doesn’t mean that it is wrong to regret it, just like it isn’t wrong to feel bad about an unavoidable predicament.
• According to Benatar, it is reasonable to seek for cosmic meaning just like it is reasonable to seek for meaning from the other perspectives on meaning. This is because it is undesirable to live a life with suffering and struggles then die afterward, ultimately for no significant reason, thereby making it a miserable existence.
  • Benatar further supports the idea that it is natural to feel sorrow about the cosmic meaninglessness by citing a fact that the most common reason for suicide is that people feel like they don’t mean much to everyone else.
• Benatar says that if our lives only have terrestrial meaning and not cosmic meaning, then our individual lives are like cogs to a pointless machine¹⁴

4. Quality

5. Death

6. Immortality

7. Suicide

8. Conclusion

Footnotes

1. By bad, I’m assuming Benatar is referring to suffering and good is referring to pleasure ↩

2. I’m presupposing that panpsychism isn’t true and that consciousness is an emergent which is also characterized by the ability to rationally act and also have experience. Though, my understanding of consciousness and panpsychism is very limited and isn’t meaningfully explored yet ↩

3. The meaning or significant difference will depend on the perspective used ↩

4. Objective meaning: whether or not it transcends limit. Subjective/personal: whether it felt good or how much the person thinks their lives/experiences meant to them. ↩

5. The absurdity applies even if the person is unaware of it, in contrast to the definition of Thomas Nagel which requires the person to be aware for it to be absurd ↩

6. Like we shouldn’t equate the global contributions of your local high school teacher to Alan Turing. That’s a reach ↩

7. This quote sheds light on the importance of perceived meaning ↩

8. Kahane doesn’t precisely delineate what they mean by “we” or “our”—whether they are referring to humans or living beings ↩

9. Just like how the longest lifespan in earth pales in comparison to cosmic time ↩

10. This is because a limited life cannot transcend the limit to be cosmically significant ↩

11. Absurd → put effort in something and it failing, with the limits still restricting them. Not-absurd → put effort something, achieve the purpose of the effort and break the limits preventing them from achieving the purpose. ↩

12. Another way of looking at it. If doing something is a waste of time, then it is an absurd action ↩

13. According to Christopher Belshaw, if even God can’t solve it, then it isn’t worth worrying about. Guy Kahane even downplays the worry by posing the rhetorical question “For something to be cosmically significant, we should be moving galaxies?” ↩

14. I interpreted this as each one of us serves a purpose to achieve a higher collective goal (reproduce and keep humanity alive), but for no ultimate reason (we will inevitably be wiped out of the universe regardless) ↩