Naively, to someone with a negative utilitarian perspective, saving lives is a net harm, because those individuals will have some suffering in the remainder of their lives. However, the death of children might cause more psychological pain for others than if they survived to old age. Has anyone looked into how such a "grief differential" compares to the typical amount of suffering in a human life?
I ask as an increasingly committed negative utilitarian starting to take seriously the idea that maybe I should stop doing things that save kids' lives.
How I think of the impact of saving a life (by donating to the likes of AMF):
So saving the life helps us, one life at a time, to transition to a world where people have fewer children and are able to invest more in each of them (and averts plenty of bereavement grief along the way)
I am glad you are seriously considering the implications of your philosophical beliefs -- this is laudable. I very much hope you don't conclude it's bad to save children's lives.
I don't think they do. I seem to remember that this topic was debated some time back and GiveWell clarified their view that they don't see it this way, but rather they just consider the immediate impact of saving a life as an intrinsic good. (although I would be more confident claiming that this is a fair representation of GiveWell's views if I could find the place where they said this, and I can't remember where it is, so apologies if I'm misremembering)