Further discussion on anti-natalism

Following this discussion :

I don’t think I explained myself properly. I’ll try again. The argument is that the absence of evil (suffering) is good, but the absence of good is not bad. I’ll give you an example. Suppose you consider whether to buy your daughter a candy bar without her knowing about it, and then decide not to, is that a bad thing? You have deprived her of a good thing, but she doesn’t know about it and therefore doesn’t care (this is of course analogous to not having a child). If, on the other hand, she asks you for a candy bar and you refuse, it may make her feel suffering and therefore it is bad. The same goes for having a child. When you don’t bring him (deprive him of a good thing), no one cares about it. When you do bring him, there are already those who care and those who may not like existence. If he did come out and he truly chooses existence over non-existence (if you read Benatar you will see that this is something that is very difficult to assess, and in short it means that it is not that most people would prefer not to be born but that they simply do not want to die, and these are different things, and one must also consider the optimism bias and whether he feels what he thinks he feels, etc.), then in retrospect bringing him into the world would not have been immoral, but the question is not in retrospect but before you bring him into the world whether this gamble is truly moral. I think that perhaps the explanation I gave above may also answer your second paragraph?