The Species Barrier Interview with David Benatar 

Absence of pain of someone who never existed is good _compared_ with the presence of pain, while absence of pleasure of someone who never existed is neutral _compared_ with presence of pleasure.

@@Haderian1 but logically this doesn't make sense. You agree that there is neutral point on the please and pain extremes but you interpret them from your own beliefs let's say. Replace the pain and pleasure with numbers for examples and you should see the problem.

​@@enemarius I don't see any point in your comment that show why it doesn't make sense. Could you elaborate?

​@İhsan Çoban Does exist anything that can reasonably said to be good or bad in itself, in your opinion? Benatar doesn't apply an intrinsic value on non-existence. He applies a *comparative* value. Why do you think that things that exist can be better (or worse) only in a comparison with other things that exist and not with things that don't exist?

@İhsan Çoban The arguments presented in the book "better never to have been" are not utilitarian nor hedonistic, they aren't specific to any moral framework in particular. Thanks for your answer but it seems to me that you have not clarified the reason why existence and non-existence cannot be valued in comparison with each other. By the way, people commonly does these kinds of evaluations in cases like those of high risk of hereditary illnesses for the offspring due to genetic conditions of the parents, or severe malformations found during the early stages of pregnancy.