As far as I can ascertain, the argument being made in the article is this: 1. The absence of good is not bad because nobody is around to lament it 2. The exis

As far as I can ascertain, the argument being made in the article is this: 1. The absence of good is not bad because nobody is around to lament it 2. The existence of bad is bad In other words, because it doesn't yet exist, you can't hurt a being by not bringing it into existence. You can't hurt non-existent beings. But you can hurt a being by bringing it into existence because it can and will be harmed once it exists. The argument is not "simply because it creates suffering for sentient beings." If you disagree with the argument, you have to explain why it is incorrect. In particular, why is the absence of good bad even if nobody is around to experience that absence? This is difficult to argue, in my opinion, even if I subjectively feel like it has to be wrong. One argument I can think of is that we want to maximize the average goodness, so we should bring conscious beings into existence if we expect them to experience more good than bad. However, philosophers don't tend to make that argument because the implications are horrific.