I admit I know very little about average or aggregate utilitarianism, so thank you for bringing that up--I have some googling to do. In reply to your comments:
you are ultimately arguing that "life" (whether that is measured in population, QALYs, or something else) is not the only "goal of life," correct?
Yes, I felt unease that it seemed like making "impact" seems (under this framework) to potentially be self-defeating.
Second, one of the reasons that "maximize the population" is not intuitively/necessarily moral is because that does not account for problems from overpopulation, including increased suffering on others who do exist.
Yes--that is something that is most definitely a concern! I do (try) to caveat some of my statements this way: see the last sentence. "If saving lives is the goal, then in almost every case (barring a significant drop in quality of life), we would choose the world where there are more lives."
This is fantastic, thank you very much! I have never heard of person-affecting views, Thomas, or Greaves. I'm so glad that I haven't stumbled on something novel and that there are formal philosophers who have written about this.
On reducing the number of life-years lost to death, I don't personally think that's a justifiable position, though I'd love to hear your thoughts. It is irrational to be less happy when given $500 and having $50 taken away than just being given $450 in the first place.
Though it's not the same comparison, there hypothetically should be no difference between <3 lives existing and 1 death>, versus <only 2 lives existing from the start>. The reason we grieve that 1 death is because the person brought happiness to our lives that did not exist were we just 2 people. The world where only 2 lives existed from the start does not seem necessarily better, in my view, than a world where 3 lived and 1 died. Though at large numbers, I may adjust my preferences.
Do you have any personal conclusions that you've reached on this issue?
Thanks for being patient. This is something that I've been mulling over for quite a while, and I haven't been able to resolve it on my own, which is why I'm posting on this forum, and very much appreciate your thoughtful remarks.
"I (and many others, I gather) aren't doing this so that more people will be born--we're doing this so that people who will be born either way live happily."
You've hit the nail on where we lose each other. In my view, whether someone is "going to exist", is something that we have control over. If you save a life today, that person may give birth to new people and do good in their life. If you let someone die today, that person had no opportunity to have offspring or do good. If you educate someone, there are fewer people in the future. The way I see it, the people of the future "existing" is a knob that we have the power to control (in a broad sense). It's not something that would happen "either way."
In the same way, I see no difference between someone not existing and someone dying. In both cases, a person is absent. In one case, the person had very real connections with other people. On the other, that person would have had very real connections with other people but were not given the chance to do so. It is the same way that economists think about opportunity costs. Opportunity costs may not be real, but had you not done something, you would have done this other thing.
Regarding your aside, I think that illustrates an interesting potential solution to the dilemma (?) The purpose is not to save lives (because in your case, the world where 100% of people die is less or equally bad than 50% of people dying). This is an interesting case, and perhaps there's a way to rephrase the original claim to accommodate it, though I'm not certain how.
What did you think about this portion of the essay? "Now, at this point, most of you are still feeling uneasy...there is a difference between lives that don’t yet exist and lives that already do exist...[continued]"
Additionally, I would posit that it is almost impossible to condition on whether a person exists in the future because 1) we could argue the same for bad as well as good actions. 2) our actions today directly affect the probability of that person existing.
Take, for example, a world in which we wreck the environment (perhaps the current world). Our actions today directly affect whether people in the future exist. And say we were able to condition on whether they exist in the future--say we posited that given current environmental damage continuing, X person in the future had a 10% chance of living. If we were god, would we say that this person is worth 10% of a modern-day person because they are likely not to exist? Well, no, because if we could intervene *today*, we could save their life.
The same is true for educating women. Say that someone in the future has an 80% chance of being alive given we educate a woman in a developing country. If we intervene, that person now has a 10% chance of being alive.
Do you see how this puzzle still is difficult to solve?
Hi Harrison,
Thank you for reading my post!
I admit I know very little about average or aggregate utilitarianism, so thank you for bringing that up--I have some googling to do. In reply to your comments:
Yes, I felt unease that it seemed like making "impact" seems (under this framework) to potentially be self-defeating.
Yes--that is something that is most definitely a concern! I do (try) to caveat some of my statements this way: see the last sentence. "If saving lives is the goal, then in almost every case (barring a significant drop in quality of life), we would choose the world where there are more lives."
Hello MichaelStJules,
This is fantastic, thank you very much! I have never heard of person-affecting views, Thomas, or Greaves. I'm so glad that I haven't stumbled on something novel and that there are formal philosophers who have written about this.
On reducing the number of life-years lost to death, I don't personally think that's a justifiable position, though I'd love to hear your thoughts. It is irrational to be less happy when given $500 and having $50 taken away than just being given $450 in the first place.
Though it's not the same comparison, there hypothetically should be no difference between <3 lives existing and 1 death>, versus <only 2 lives existing from the start>. The reason we grieve that 1 death is because the person brought happiness to our lives that did not exist were we just 2 people. The world where only 2 lives existed from the start does not seem necessarily better, in my view, than a world where 3 lived and 1 died. Though at large numbers, I may adjust my preferences.
Do you have any personal conclusions that you've reached on this issue?
Hi Lumpyproletariat,
Thanks for being patient. This is something that I've been mulling over for quite a while, and I haven't been able to resolve it on my own, which is why I'm posting on this forum, and very much appreciate your thoughtful remarks.
You've hit the nail on where we lose each other. In my view, whether someone is "going to exist", is something that we have control over. If you save a life today, that person may give birth to new people and do good in their life. If you let someone die today, that person had no opportunity to have offspring or do good. If you educate someone, there are fewer people in the future. The way I see it, the people of the future "existing" is a knob that we have the power to control (in a broad sense). It's not something that would happen "either way."
In the same way, I see no difference between someone not existing and someone dying. In both cases, a person is absent. In one case, the person had very real connections with other people. On the other, that person would have had very real connections with other people but were not given the chance to do so. It is the same way that economists think about opportunity costs. Opportunity costs may not be real, but had you not done something, you would have done this other thing.
Regarding your aside, I think that illustrates an interesting potential solution to the dilemma (?) The purpose is not to save lives (because in your case, the world where 100% of people die is less or equally bad than 50% of people dying). This is an interesting case, and perhaps there's a way to rephrase the original claim to accommodate it, though I'm not certain how.
Good afternoon, Lumpyproletariat.
Thank you for reading my essay.
What did you think about this portion of the essay? "Now, at this point, most of you are still feeling uneasy...there is a difference between lives that don’t yet exist and lives that already do exist...[continued]"
Additionally, I would posit that it is almost impossible to condition on whether a person exists in the future because 1) we could argue the same for bad as well as good actions. 2) our actions today directly affect the probability of that person existing.
Take, for example, a world in which we wreck the environment (perhaps the current world). Our actions today directly affect whether people in the future exist. And say we were able to condition on whether they exist in the future--say we posited that given current environmental damage continuing, X person in the future had a 10% chance of living. If we were god, would we say that this person is worth 10% of a modern-day person because they are likely not to exist? Well, no, because if we could intervene *today*, we could save their life.
The same is true for educating women. Say that someone in the future has an 80% chance of being alive given we educate a woman in a developing country. If we intervene, that person now has a 10% chance of being alive.
Do you see how this puzzle still is difficult to solve?