Comparing Existence and Non-Existence

Existence comparativism holds that it can sometimes be better or worse, for a given person, that that person exist rather than not. The dominant argument in the literature on this issue is the Metaphysical Argument, which purports to show that existence comparativism is metaphysically incoherent. The argument of this chapter is that the Metaphysical Argument fails. Even if existence cannot be personally better than non-existence, the Metaphysical Argument cannot be the reason for this, since the argument proves too much. Denying its first premise means holding that personal betterness comparisons between a fixed pair of possible worlds are contingent; some recent work has taken this course. Denying the second premise means holding that A can be better for S than B even when S does not exist. This chapter presents the case for denying the second premise. Contrary to something of a consensus in the literature, this is not absurd in general metaphysical terms. And there is a particular analysis of personal betterness comparisons that explains in more detail how one outcome can be better than another for an individual who does not exist. The chapter therefore concludes that existence comparativism, whether true or false, is metaphysically coherent.