The case for strong and weak efilism

 

My working definition of efilism is that Efilism is a philosophical and ethical position that ascribes negative value to the existence of sentient life. I use the concept of efilism as the view that it is rational, and thus universally advisable, what can be understood as "morally good",  to cause the ultimate extinction of all life, including preventing its re-emergence. In practice, this manifests itself in a preference for the extinction of earthly life rather than a continuation of it, as well as for life in space if we can influence its extinction, all of that usually assuming that death is annihilation.

Efilism can be reached in several ways and based on various assumptions, such as the assumption that every life is not worth living, but also the assumption that many lives are worth living, but it is not advisable to risk their existence if it entails the existence of other lives filled with immeasurable suffering.

Both views are found among efilists, so I find it potentially practical to distinguish between two basic types of efilism. I postulate to define weak efilism and strong efilism, both of them having the same goal in practice, or sympathizing with the same goal, namely extinction of life, but based on different motives.

Weak efilism (conditional efilism) is the view that it is rational to bring all life to extinction for instrumental reasons. Any particular life doesn't have to be negative in itself, plenty of lives can be worth living. it is compatible with the statement that even the painless annihilation of all life is a bad thing, yet it can be or is a lesser evil than letting it multiply, creating more lives that must suffer and die. Due to the magnitude of the potential suffering, extinction is instrumentally preferable. Certain forms of negative utilitarianism, as well as universal antinatalism on a consequentialist basis seem to imply or at least sympathize with weak efilism.

Strong efilism (unconditional efilism) works on the premise that every possible life is life not worth living or in the best case neutral, but there are no lives that are inherently worth living. It seems to assume that at a fundamental level there are only negative values, all the positives you feel are merely a dilution of the existing negatives. Strong efilism could be seen as universal promortalism. According to strong efilism, it is less profitable for any creature to exist than to cease to exist, a view that could be close to or at least compatible with radical negative utilitarianism and antifrustrationist axiology. In strong efilism, because of the universal negativity sheer phenomenon of sentient life, extinction is fundamentally preferable.

The terms „strong” and „weak” are used to indicate the intensity of the view, the radicality of premises, not to judge which of them is more practical, rational nor coherent. It is the use of an analogous tool as in the division of atheism and negative utilitarianism subtypes. I  think soft and hard efilism can be used as terms as well.