Death isn't bad

But Life is Better

Too often, people are tempted to assume that upsetting outcomes must be bad (worse than nothing). But an objectively neutral outcome may still be extremely distressing, when one had reasonably hoped for better. Some may instead be using “bad” in an implicitly comparative sense, to mean something like “below expectations”. That’s fine, as long as you’re clear on what you mean—and understand that “below expectations” doesn’t imply “disvaluable”. As I previously explained:

Some things are absolutely bad: we have reason to prevent or avoid them, even at some (lesser) cost. Other things are merely comparatively bad: we have reason to want something else even more, but no reason to regard these things as intrinsically bad or worse than nothing at all.

If a life contains absolute bads (and insufficient compensating goods) then it may overall detract from the world. All else equal, we should seek to prevent an overall bad life from coming into existence.

What sorts of things could make a life worse than nothing? Suffering is the obvious example. Or “ill-being” more generally, whatever you take that to consist in. But what about mere (painless) death?

Is he really so bad? Or just misunderstood?