The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions is a philosophy book by David Benatar, which makes a case for philosophical pessimism, published by Oxford University Press in 2017.

[1][2] The book presents Benatar's views on a range of philosophical issues, arguing, among other topics, that having children is immoral, that death is bad despite much of human life being spent in suffering, and that suicide may be a morally justified action more often than is commonly assumed.

In an earlier 2017 paper The Incoherence of Soft Nihilism,[2] Matheson classifies Benatar—together with Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Camus, and Thomas Nagel—as a proponent of what he refers to as "soft nihilism," or the belief that there is overall negative value in being alive (as compared to what Matheson calls "affirmationism," which holds the reverse), but that "it can be better, all things considered, for us to continue living in a certain way than for us to cease living altogether.

"[2] He contrasts this with what he calls "hard nihilism," a nihilistic position that holds death or suicide to be the (perhaps only) logical response to the human predicament.

Matheson proceeds to argue that soft nihilism is incoherent, via the following argument:Andrew Spalding of the Centre for Christian Apologetics, Scholarship and Education (CASE) gave a qualified defense of Benatar's work from the perspective of Christian apologetics, noting that "a lot of what he says resonates strongly with the biblical pessimist known as Qohelet (or Ecclesiastes),"[6] in Benatar's assessment of the low quality of human life, and in his advice to use distraction as a coping mechanism.

[6] Ema Sullivan-Bissett of The American Journal of Bioethics praised The Human Predicament for its "compassionate exposition of the appalling nature of our lives, extremely careful argumentation, and persuasive style.