Source: Benatar, David. Better Never to Have Been (2008 1 edn). p. 155 Middle.
I don't understand the emboldened sentence beneath. What are some common real-life yens that fit and can instance the titled question? Why would we think that these yens oughtn't be done?
That the preference for having been born is mistaken lends further support to another (independently) very strong criticism of Professor Hare’s argument. It has been noted that the first premiss of his argument—the logical extension of the Golden Rule—is false. There is a difference between being glad that somebody did something for one and thinking that that person was obligated to have done as he did. Not everything that we might wish to be done (or are glad was done) is something that we think should be done (or should have been done). We can wish to be treated in ways that we recognize others are not duty-bound to treat us (or we them).²⁹ This is true even where one’s preferences are not defective. The point is still more powerful when our preferences are uninformed and mistaken.
²⁹ Boonin, David, ‘Against the Golden Rule Argument Against Abortion’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 14/2 (1997) 187–97.