Hmm, I think I made some unjustified leaps in the above comment.
Some contingent moral patients in A could be determinately better off in expectation (conditional on existing) than the statistical average contingent moral patient in B, and some contingent moral patients in A could be determinately worse off in expectation (conditional on existing) than the statistical average contingent moral patient in B. So, with counterparts:
on bottom-up bracketing, we wouldn’t bracket the determinately better off than average contingent moral patients and determinately worse off than average contingent moral patients out. We do get to bracket out those where the comparison is indeterminate, by overlapping in range of welfare with the average. I’d guess it’s possible to specify some that are far enough away from the average, but this could be wrong.
on top-down bracketing, whether they get bracketed out probably depends a lot more on the specifics.
There’s also a question of whether we should handle counterparts iteratively, and then if order matters. If we bracket out Alice in A with her statistical counterparts in B, then it doesn’t seem like Alice should be left as an available counterpart to those in B (after pulling out one statistically average contingent moral patient from B), so Alice shouldn’t be part of the statistical average for counterparts of those left in B. So the statistical average of remaining moral patients in A needs to be recomputed. But if we bracket out the contingent moral patient Alex in A first instead of Alice, could this change the verdict of the comparison?
Hmm, I think I made some unjustified leaps in the above comment.
Some contingent moral patients in A could be determinately better off in expectation (conditional on existing) than the statistical average contingent moral patient in B, and some contingent moral patients in A could be determinately worse off in expectation (conditional on existing) than the statistical average contingent moral patient in B. So, with counterparts:
on bottom-up bracketing, we wouldn’t bracket the determinately better off than average contingent moral patients and determinately worse off than average contingent moral patients out. We do get to bracket out those where the comparison is indeterminate, by overlapping in range of welfare with the average. I’d guess it’s possible to specify some that are far enough away from the average, but this could be wrong.
on top-down bracketing, whether they get bracketed out probably depends a lot more on the specifics.
There’s also a question of whether we should handle counterparts iteratively, and then if order matters. If we bracket out Alice in A with her statistical counterparts in B, then it doesn’t seem like Alice should be left as an available counterpart to those in B (after pulling out one statistically average contingent moral patient from B), so Alice shouldn’t be part of the statistical average for counterparts of those left in B. So the statistical average of remaining moral patients in A needs to be recomputed. But if we bracket out the contingent moral patient Alex in A first instead of Alice, could this change the verdict of the comparison?