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2AC AT Extinction good ................................................................................................................................................................................ 2

1AR AT suffering good ............................................................................................................................................................................... 5
1AR AT Nihilsm ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
1AR AT Utopianism ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 7
Benatar indicts ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
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Theres a difference between better never having been and committing suicide now that were aliveif suffering is
bad, committing suicide would cause huge pain not only to ourselves but to those we knowpreventing forced
death maximizes happiness because only the unhappy would kill themselves
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 7 (Review of Better Never to Have Been, http://www.utilitarianism.com/benatar/index.html, AG)
It's hard to see, too, once this mistake is pointed out, why
we shouldn't then commit suicide. Benatar insists that there is no strong
connection here, and that there are many lives we shouldn't start but which, once started, we should thereafter save. Hence even
if it would be better had I never been born, it isn't better that I die now. But is this right? It can be. Suppose someone has sixty very bad years, ten
good years, and then dies. His life might be overall not worth living, such that it would have been wrong to cause him to exist. Even so, it would plainly not be wrong to save
his life at the end of year sixty. A different case: someone's life is not, in itself, worth living. But in the course of her life she acquires
responsibilities such that her death would be bad for many. Starting such a life would be wrong, but then so too would be
ending it. Benatar's point against suicide is supposed to cover a much wider range of cases. He thinks there may be disabilities, say
leglessness, such that it would be wrong to start a life involving such disabilities, but wrong too to end this life once it is properly
under way. This is far from clear. If the life is overall worth living, it isn't wrong to start it. If it's not worth living then suicide is
rational. So there is, I think, still some way to go in countering the claim that if coming into existence is a serious harm so too, in general, is continuing in existence. The
obvious objections to Benatar's central thesis still stand.

They have no right to speak for otherspeople should decide their own lifes value but granting them survival is a
prerequisiteforeclosing this choice is the ultimate form of suffering
Schwartz 2 Associate Professor of Medicine, Dartmouth (Lisa, Medical Ethics, http://www.fleshandbones.com/readingroom/pdf/399.pdf, AG)
This assertion suggests that the determination of the
value of the quality of a given life is a subjective determination to be made by the person
experiencing that life. The important addition here is that the decision is a personal one that, ideally, ought not to be made externally by
another person but internally by the individual involved. Katherine Lewis made this decision for herself based on a comparison between two stages of her life. So did
James Brady. Without this element, decisions based on quality of life criteria lack salient information and the patients concerned cannot give
informed consent. Patients must be given the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they think their lives are worth living or not.

We allow voluntary human extinction later onhuman species will inevitably choose non-reproduction but going
out beautifully has worth and preserves other species
The Economist 98 (12/17, Sui genocide, http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=179963, AG)
The great violinist Jascha Heifetz was great not least because he quit the concert stage at his peak, before the show became stale or
the audience drifted away. To exit gracefully is sublime, as Heifetz understood. And only one species is capable of choosing a
similarly graceful exit; all others march on like robots. To call time on the human race by choice, not necessity, would be the
final victory of the human spirit over animal nature, an absolute emancipation from the diktat of DNA. Precisely because no other known
life-form could do or even conceive such a thing, humanity must. More: science has revealed only one place in the universe that is hospitable to
intelligent life, and humans are the only intelligence that, as far as is known, has ever enjoyed the opportunity to occupy it. If people left the stage after a reasonable run, in the
fullness of time intelligence could evolve again (dolphin-people? chimp-people? orchid people?). And then, in due course, when this new species deciphered human books or
reached the marker that might be left for them on the windless moon, they would know that man ended his dominion so that theirs might begin. Imagine, then, how they will
regard us. It is, far and away, the greatest act of goodness ever contemplated, the ennoblement of a whole species; an act, almost, of angels. BY departing the scene humanity
will leave much undiscovered, much unexplored and unfinished. Perhaps in the reaches of space there is life, or even intelligence: a pity to extinguish the race before meeting
it. Yet the future is always an unwritten page, and the nobility of voluntary extinction resides precisely in shutting the book at a time of our own choosing. To make contact
with an alien race while still alive would be interesting, for a while; but mankind will doubtless make a better impression posthumously. Then the aliens will know the ancients
of earth as a legendary race that gave itself back to the dust and the stars. They will speak of us with awe to their children for as long as, ignoring our example, they continue
to have any. Imagine the poetry, the music, of those last few human generations; imagine the moral exaltation of those last few souls, the pregnant richness of sound and
light and colour and even of thought in the last months of humanitys twilight. Who would not give everything to know the ineffable sadness and nobility of being among the
last? Then, at last, the lights will go out, and the world will begin anew, and the sand will cover our name. That would be a finale worthy of a great race. It is hard, indeed, to
imagine any reason to be against voluntary human extinction. The tricky question is not whether to extinguish, but when. Certainly not right away, if only because,
For
as yet, we cant. As Mr Knight himself says, Convincing 6 billion people to stop breeding is indeed a daunting task. But there need be no rush. Look at it this way.
humans to reach a state of such collective rational consensus that they become capable of choosing their end may take a few
millennia, or a few dozen or a few hundred millennia; but this decision need only be made once. When even the last few men and women left holding
out answer the call to the sublime, and choose to bear no more childrenthen that will be the species finest hour. And so that
will be the time to leave. The timetable of voluntarism is perfect: it provides ample time, but not a day too much of it.
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This way to die is a truly horrible one a fast extinction isnt the way to go.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 07 (June 9, http://www.utilitarianism.com/benatar/index.html, Better Never to Have
Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Reviewed by Christopher Belshaw, twm)

Chapter 6 is somewhat more technical than the others. Perhaps for that reason it is somewhat less interesting. But it can be
thought of in two somewhat interwoven halves. In the first, Benatar advances further consequences of his main claim. As all
human lives are very bad, the ideal population size is zero. And so it would be better if our species were extinct. But it doesn't
follow that this should happen as soon as possible. A rushed extinction would be very bad for millions of extant people.

Theyve conceded all our advantages this particular type of extinction would also wipe out plants which outweighs
the supposed advantages to extinction.

Suffering is decreasing now which takes out their impact. And, suicide is increasing which takes out their claim that
people have a biological hedge against committing suicide.
Carreira 4 director of education, EnlightenNext (Jeff, The Progress Paradox, http://www.wie.org/j26/reviews.asp, AG)
Practically everything is getting better. This is the bold assertion that starts Gregg Easterbrook's optimistic assault on postmodern cynicism. For
example: health care is better for more people on Earth than ever before; the incidence of armed conflict is declining worldwide; crime rates are
dropping in urban America; smallpox, polio, and other fatal diseases have been eradicated; and one-third fewer people die of hunger than
two decades ago. Wait a minute, you might be thinking: What about global warming? What about species extinction? But Easterbrook isn't denying
our problemshe's simply saying that our fear-obsessed culture negatively slants our view of reality and will never give us the
will, the drive, or the determination to find solutions. The book's relentless onslaught of good news shows that by almost every measurable standard, life
today is better than it ever has been. In fact, in the developed world, the average person enjoys a standard of living that far exceeds that of any king or
queen in centuries past. Yet in spite of our outrageously good fortune, Easterbrook says, we seem to be sinking more deeply into negativity and pessimism, popping Prozac to
fight depression, committing suicide at escalating rates, and generally feeling despondent about the possibility of making any real difference.

Benatar is wrongtheres no objective basis to determine these examples of suffering are objective definitions or a
net loss
Doyal 7 Professor, University of London (Len, Is human existence worth its consequent harm?, Journal of Medical Ethics 33:573-576,
http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/33/10/573, AG)

Of course, original negotiators might be convinced by Benatar's primary argument that these beneficial possibilities do not trump
the fact that non-existence entails no experience of harm and the absence of any benefits that existence might offer. However, I
do not believe that Benatar demonstrates that they would necessarily argue that entering into such existence is irrational. Why
should it not be at least as likely that they would argue that in the world that they designed, the downside of human existence
would be worth the gamble of actually experiencing many of its extraordinary benefits?9 And if rational original negotiators might argue in
this way then why should we not do more or less the same? There is no logical reason not to do so: no contradiction in saying that under
specific conditions, I value the vicissitudes of human existence more than I do the prospect of a non-existence entailing no
experience of harm and absence of benefit. I might just as consistently argue that I believe the same about my future
childrenall future childrenprovided that these specific conditions are in place. Equally, there is no empirical reason to prefer
non-existence over existence unless one dismisses (as Benatar appears to do) all possible (not to mention actual!) human valuations of
the positive value of life as the by-product of "Pollyannaism"a tendency to cope psychologically with a bad situation through adaptation,
accommodation or habituation that reinforces belief that things are better than they are.10 The fact that people may often accentuate the positive to
eliminate the negative does not mean that this is inevitable. There is something extraordinarily paternalistic about suggesting as much. Yet, really,
Benatar has no option but to be dismissive of all of us who believe that the adventure of being alive and of striving for our own individual stamp of meaning within in it
makes the perceived or non-perceived harms of existence worth the potential benefits. If even one of usthe "cheerful" as he calls his opponentsmight be right on the
basis of our experience to prefer existence over non-existence, it is hard to see how Benatar could then sustain his main argument.
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Deciding other peoples lives are not worth living violates the primary duty of government which is to treat all
people as equals.
Szacki 96 Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Warsaw (Jerzy, Liberalism After Communism, p 197, AG)
Liberalism does not say which of these different moralities is better than others. It is neutral on this question and regards its neutrality as a virtue. Liberalism as a political doctrine assumes that - as Joseph Raz wrote -'there are many
society is characterized not simply by a
worthwhile and valuable relationships, commitments and plans of life which are mutually incompatible'.56 It recognizes that - as John Rawls put it - 'a modern democratic

pluralism of comprehensive religious, philosophical and moral doctrines but by a pluralism of incompatible yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines'.57 What is more, for a liberal this is
not only a fact to take note of: he or she is ready to acknowledge that 'now this variety of conceptions of the good is itself a good thing, that is, it is rational for members of a well-ordered society to want their plans to be different'.58
the task of politics cannot and should not be to resolve the dispute among different conceptions of life. This is completely
Thus,

attainable only by a totalitarian enslavement of society in the name of some one conception. This being the case, according to Dworkin,
unattainable or is

'political decisions must be as far as possible independent of conceptions of the good life, or what gives value to life. Since citizens of a society differ

in these conceptions, the government does not treat them as equals if it prefers one conception to another.'59

In the future scarcity will be eliminated which takes out their argument that the rich will inevitably live off the backs of the
poor.
Zey 1997
(Michael, Professor of Management at Montclair State University, The Futurist, The Macroindustrial Era: A New Age of Abundance and
Prosperity, March/April, http://www.zey.com/Featured_2.htm)

In the Macroindustrial Era, we will overcome limits in the area of quantity. A variety of sophisticated and advanced technologies will create
food, resources, and products in such quantities that we will move into a new age of abundance. In the next era, the only "quantity" problem facing
business will be that of overproduction, not scarcity.
A number of mind-boggling innovations will make what I label macromanufacturing possible. One of these, the cybernetic factory, combines computers and robotics to turn out high quantities of goods, from radios to surgical equipment. Another
innovation, magnetic machinery, involves devices whose parts never touch as they float in electromagnetic fields. This lack of friction allows them to operate at ultrahigh speeds with almost no wear and tear.
The production of a higher quantity of goods depends on the availability of a powerful and reliable energy source. The macromanufacturing machines will use fusion energy systems, which will dwarf the output of oil and coal generating plants.
Food will also be produced in abundance. Through biotechnology and genetic engineering, we will be able to produce massive amounts of food, very
often in climates and soil that would have been considered totally inhospitable to the growing of any crop. These technolgies will enable us to mass
produce almost any food, vegetable, or livestock, anywhere we desire.
We cannot overstate the humanitarian effect of this increase in the quantity of goods. For the first time in human history, the world's population will
be well fed, well clothed, and comfortably housed. And a very large population could be served - perhaps 40 to 50 billion people or more.

We can achieve immortality which will result in a shift in human consciousness outweighing current suffering.
Neo-Tech 1998 (Neo-Tech Advantage # 114: Youth-Rejuvenating Immortality Now, http://www.neo-
tech.com/advantages/advantage114.html)

Yet, the enormous commercial and moral incentives to achieve human immortality remain unrecognized because of the
prevailing, mystical, anti-life philosophies and the neocheating "authorities" whose control over value production prevent the
motivation and freedom for producers to develop biological immortality.
Absolute I-ness immortality accomplished by creating a perfectly restorable conscious mind and sense of self (I-ness) would
have a profound psychological impact on every productive human being: Imagine the impact of planning one's own life for
the next 300 years. Imagine the time that would be available to build accomplishments, careers, and interests. Imagine if one's
life span were suddenly expanded to 300 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years. Imagine the value and respect placed on human lives
that forever increased in value. ...Current technology indicates that such definitive, biological immortality would be both
scientifically and technically possible in less than a decade in a free society that recognizes individual consciousness as the
supreme value in the universe.
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1AR AT suffering good

Some people enjoy sufferingwe promote suffering for those individuals who want it
Leiter 4 Professor of Law, Texas (Bryan, August 26, Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu /entries/nietzsche-moral -political/, AG)
Nietzsche is not arguing here that in contrast to the view of MPS suffering is really intrinsically valuable (not even MPS claims that). The value of suffering,
according to Nietzsche, is only extrinsic: suffering great suffering is a prerequisite of any great human achievement. As Nietzsche puts
the point elsewhere: Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit.I doubt that such pain makes us better; but I know that it makes us more profound (GS
Pref:3). Nietzsche's attack, then, conforms to the model sketched above: (i) he rejects the view that happiness is intrinsically valuable; and (ii) he thinks that the negative
attitude of MPS toward suffering obscures its important extrinsic value. (There is reason to think that, on this second point, Nietzsche is generalizing from his own experience
with physical suffering, the worst periods of which coincided with his greatest productivity. Indeed, he believed that his suffering contributed essentially to his work: as he
writes, admittedly hyperbolically, in Ecce Homo: In the midst of the torments that go with an uninterrupted three-day migraine, accompanied by laborious vomiting of
phlegm, I possessed a dialectician's clarity par excellence and thought through with very cold blood matters for which under healthier circumstances I am not mountain-
climber, not subtle, not cold enough (EH I:1).) Even if there is no shortage in the history of art and literature of cases of immense suffering
being the spur to great creativity, there remains a serious worry about the logic of this line of Nietzschean critique. Following Leiter (1995), we may call this the
Harm Puzzle, and the puzzle is this: why should one think the general moral prescription to alleviate suffering must stop the suffering
of great artists, hence stop them from producing great art? One might think, in fact, that MPS could perfectly well allow an exception for those
individuals whose own suffering is essential to the realization of central life projects. After all, a prescription to alleviate
suffering reflects a concern with promoting well-being, under some construal. But if some individuals nascent Goethes, Nietzsches,
and other geniuses would be better off with a good dose of suffering, then why would MPS recommend otherwise? Why, then, should it be the
case that MPS harms potentially higher men?

Endorsing the defeatist notion that suffering is inevitable we doom ourselves to more suffering. We need to embrace
a hope that says even if some suffering is inevitable, we can still create less. This affirms life and allows individual
choice of lifes value
Smolkin 89 Internal Medicine Professor, Virginia (Mitchell, Understanding Pain, p 75-9, AG)
Nor would solidarity be shown by stoical acceptance of the status quo. Camus urges his rebels to renounce murder completely and work for
justice and for a decrease in suffering. Like Dr. Rieux in The Plague, one should take the victim's side and "share with his fellow citizens the only certitude they have
in commonlove, exile, suffering." What can be accomplished through rebellion? Camus' goals are modest. He realizes that the rebel is doomed to "a never
ending defeat,'' in that death, finitude and suffering will always conquer him. He realizes that after man has mastered everything in creation that
can be mastered and rectified everything that can be rectified, children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort man can only purpose to
diminish arithmetically the sufferings of the world. But the injustice and the suffering will remain and, no matter how limited they are, they will not cease to be an outrage.
However, there are ephemeral victories and rewards for the rebel, He who dedicates himself for the duration of his life to the house he builds, to the dignity of
mankind, dedicates himself to the earth and reaps from it the harvest that sows its seed arid sustains the world again and again. Those whose desires are limited to man and
his humble yet formidable love, should enter, if only now and then, into their reward. They know that if there is one thing one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is
human love. Society must be arranged to limit injustice and suffering as much as possible so that each individual has the leisure
and freedom to pursue his own search for meaning. Future utopias must be renounces, and "history can no longer be presented as an object of worship." "It is
time to forsake our age and its adolescent furies," and to aim for what is possiblemore justice, solidarity, and love among men. The rebel must
"reject divinity in order to share in the struggles and destiny of all men." Redemption is impossible. Human dignity and love can intermittently be achieved with struggle and
constant vigilance against the plague bacillus that "never dies or disappears for good ... [but can] rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city."
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1AR AT Nihilsm

Nihilism is self-defeating if nothing has value what is the value of preventing suffering?
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1AR AT Utopianism
Utopian ideal are the inevitable foundations behind all assumptionswe need to hold out hope for a progress
Tallis 97 writer of philosophy and professor of medicine, U Manchester (Raymond, Enemies of Hope, p 376-9, AG)
we cannot live without explicitly Utopian ideals. Many men of goodwill have done so. But because, as already indicated, modest
This is a deeply disturbing conclusion, not simply because

dreams of bringing about improvements in a small sphere of one's own expertise and concern, shade imperceptibly into the hope of leaving the world a better place than
melioristic ambitions,

one had found it into the hope of bringing about net overall gain. It would be an odd social conscience that was unconcerned if the improvements brought about in one sphere were exactly
offset, or worse, by deterioration in other places. The socially concerned, whilst oppressively aware that there is much misery that they must leave to others to sort out, at least assume that the happiness they spread will not bring
about deepening immiseration elsewhere. This assumption is not, of course, always well founded: society is not only the sum of intended actions and their intended consequences but also of the unintended consequences of actions.
Nevertheless, all melioristic instincts, however narrowly expressed, have the seed of Utopianism in them; bear within them the assumption that many
progressive actions will add up to overall net progress for the world, that they have a deeper meaning inasmuch as they may contribute, in howsoever small a
fashion, towards the forwards and upwards movement of humanity as a whole out of want, fear, pain, impoverishment of all sorts; that the effects of these actions will converge in

similar or compatible goals even if they are not strictly synergistic; and that, while Utopia will not be achieved as the outcome of a single revolutionary

convulsion, it will be approximated, even if never achieved, as an asymptote approached by huge numbers of small advances.
To abandon Utopian ideas, therefore, is not merely to foreswear the visionary passions of fanatics and lunatics, but to throw into question the very dimension of hope
in human affairs. It is difficult to be anti-Utopian without being against progress itself; for there is no clear or sharp distinction
between arrogant claims to provide universal - in both senses of 'global' and 'universally applicable' - solutions to the woes of mankind and wanting to
contribute, however modestly, to making the world overall a better place.
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Benatar indicts
Benatars fundamental claim that we cant assess the value of our own lives is flawed.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 07 (June 9, http://www.utilitarianism.com/benatar/index.html, Better Never to Have
Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Reviewed by Christopher Belshaw, twm)

Let's go back to the book's core, and to the objections I raised above. All our lives are very bad and, generally, much worse
than we think. So we are systematically and significantly mistaken about their value. Is this really credible? Schopenhauerian
considerations might persuade us that we are somewhat generous in appraising our own lives, but Benatar needs more than
this concern about self-assessment, and needs to explain how we can falsely believe that all lives, throughout history, are much
better than they are. Given that we are not systematically in error about attendant factual beliefs -- we don't overlook the
evidence for hell, for example, nor are we seriously mistaken about the balance between good and bad episodes within lives --
it isn't at all easy, I think, to see how such a mistake might be made.

Benatar doesnt account for relevant differences in the quantities of pleasure and pain involved undermines his
entire argument.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 07 (June 9, http://www.utilitarianism.com/benatar/index.html, Better Never to Have
Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Reviewed by Christopher Belshaw, twm)

So, give Benatar a charitable reading and there are still objections to be made. Give him what may in the end be a fairer
reading, and the objections are stronger. Both in the paper and the book he argues thus: suppose you have to choose between
two packages. The first contains something good and something bad, while the second contains something good and
something neutral. The second package is to be preferred. But the first package is one in which we exist, and where our lives
involve both goods and bads, or pleasures and pains. The second is one in which we don't exist, and so there are no pains --
something good, and no pleasures -- something not bad, or neutral. So, on balance, existence is worse than non-existence. This
is a dreadful argument. It's most obviously dreadful in taking no account of the quantities of pleasure and pain involved.