First of all it is important to note that we do not base our anti-natalist positions on the claim that life is bad because there is pain in it. In fact, we don’t even base our anti-natalist positions on the fact that life is necessarily bad, but on a host of other claims. We do think that life in general is bad, but that is not the basis, certainly not the main one, for our claims against reproduction, and our claim that life is bad is not based only on the fact that there is pain in it.
In any case, even if we did think so, how is the fact that sentient beings need such an aggressive and negative mechanism to avoid danger a good thing? How does that make life any less bad? After all, this argument implies that if we didn’t have pain life would be worse, and this is evidence that life is really bad because what it means is that there are many dangers in life and the way to avoid them is to experience something really bad in the form of pain. Avoiding something dangerous by experiencing something bad is to make a bad situation even worse. The fact that thanks to a very negative mechanism the situation is not even more negative, does not make this mechanism positive. If anything it indicates that life is so bad and dangerous that it is better to experience something as negative as pain in order not to experience something even worse. And that is surely not good.
The basis for the claim that pain is positive because it warns of danger is that there is an evolutionary logic behind pain. However, pain in many cases, certainly when it is chronic or very powerful, actually greatly impairs function and fitness.
It is certainly possible to imagine a much less violent and aggressive mechanism that would prevent creatures from continuing to do an action that hurts them and would prevent them from doing it again. There is no reason why the mechanism of protection against dangers should not be a warning received by the brain to stop doing something immediately without the accompanying agony. There does not seem to be any necessary reason why this warning mechanism should not be activated in other ways in case of contact with fire or something sharp for example, just as other mechanisms cause creatures to do things instantly without pain. Hair sticking up, dilated pupils, sweating, reflexes, etc. are physiological reactions to stimuli that are not accompanied by pain, so an alternative and non-offensive mechanism is not something that cannot be imagined. And even if it has to be a pain mechanism, why not short and gentle? Why not one that stops immediately upon moving away from danger? Why does it have to be so searing and paralyzing in some cases? Why does it have to go on for days in many cases? And more importantly, how is this a good thing after all?
Wouldn’t it be better to have a very positive mechanism that would make us avoid dangers? For example, feeling pleasure as long as we do good things and if we do dangerous things, then stop feeling pleasure? Or just receiving a neutral warning about danger without experiencing pain? Of course you may say that if the mechanism is weak we will not have enough motivation to avoid pain, but this is exactly an indication of how bad life is in itself, because if we need such a bad mechanism to avoid something bad, the basic situation is bad in itself. If life were good there would be much less danger, and the warnings would not be so negative. This is not the case because life is not good in itself.
Besides, the pain mechanism is completely screwed up. There are countless false alarms, meaning pain without danger or without any ability of the sufferer to do anything about it. Phantom pain is a classic example of how screwed up the mechanism is and how cruel life is. As if the loss of an organ is not bad enough, we still continue to suffer from warnings about it when it is no longer there?!
Other examples of how screwed up the mechanism is are exaggerated responses. Many people suffer from prolonged inflammation that impairs the range of motion and is of course accompanied by pain, as a result of a marginal event in which the danger has long passed.
But even in routine cases, the mechanism itself is simply too aggressive and indiscriminate and this combination is very painful, sometimes for no good reason. In cases of external penetration through the skin, suppose it can be argued that a quick and indiscriminate response is justified because the cost of the pain accompanying the destruction of healthy cells is less than the damage that may be caused by an infection. But even if we ignore the fact that a much less aggressive or at least much shorter mechanism could have been developed to prevent the risk of infection, what is the use and what good is this mechanism in case of internal damage? What is the point of the aggressive response in the form of billions of white blood cells that quickly reach a given area and destroy everything in a certain range, including healthy tissues, when the damage is to an internal organ and is therefore sterile? There is no fear of contamination and yet the reaction is as if there is one, and the price is pain, sometimes terrible, without a point or justification, even if pain was really the only possible mechanism to prevent damage. If the pain mechanism had been successful, there would have been a clear distinction between injury with risk of infection and injury without risk of infection, which would have saved all the cases in which there is pain as a result of injury to internal organs without fear of infection.
Theoretically, different chemicals could have been secreted depending on the injury in terms of risk of infection, severity, and type of organ and depending on the body’s reaction to the injury. In practice this does not happen, and every injury provokes an aggressive and painful reaction. Even in the case of damage to internal organs without danger of infection, the white blood cells arrive and do what they know how to do, destroy cells indiscriminately, even healthy ones. And this mechanism of destroying cells, many of which are completely healthy, actually worsens the initial condition. It causes additional injuries beyond the original injury, as well as strong and prolonged pain and without benefiting the original injury.
Many people suffer from pain that is the result of a congenital structure, for example in the lower back, feet, neck, and knees. There is no biological point to such a warning mechanism since there is really nothing to be done to correct the problems since they are the result of a congenitally defective structure. In some cases medical aids or procedures may help, but of course this does not indicate the effectiveness of the mechanism, quite the opposite. If the source is unclear or uncontrollable, and only external and completely unnatural interventions can help, this indicates inherent problems in the mechanism.
The pain mechanism has a kind of vicious cycle where pain increases the more a person is stressed, anxious or sad. And of course, the more a person is in pain, the more stressed, anxious and sad s/he is, thus causing the pain to intensify.
Another cruel feedback loop regarding pain is that the more it hurts, the harder it is to overcome the pain and this intensifies it. If the mechanism had been more refined, focused and differentiated, this would not have happened.
There are diseases in which the body attacks itself because of misidentifications. That is, there is no real danger at all, but the pain is completely real. And sometimes it is terrible.
Pain is far from being an effective mechanism. Many times it is exaggerated, and one can imagine a much less negative deterrent mechanism. There isn’t one because life doesn’t work like that. Pain is what has evolved and it works more or less among most people (most pains do not kill or prevent reproduction and therefore the mechanism continues to replicate while making the replications miserable) so even though it is terrible it continues. Like life itself.