I don’t find this very unusual. I think the degree to which well-being consists in life satisfaction could come in continuous degrees. We could also say that the parents’ well-being did also consist in life satisfaction (on top of happiness), but the value was 0.
Also, can’t such an argument be applied to any theory of well-being? We have ancestors who weren’t capable of happiness whose offspring were. Sure, we’re saying this marks moral patienthood, but we can recognize that things can be moral patients for different reasons or in different ways, even multiple ways at the same time.
I don’t find this very unusual. I think the degree to which well-being consists in life satisfaction could come in continuous degrees. We could also say that the parents’ well-being did also consist in life satisfaction (on top of happiness), but the value was 0.
Also, can’t such an argument be applied to any theory of well-being? We have ancestors who weren’t capable of happiness whose offspring were. Sure, we’re saying this marks moral patienthood, but we can recognize that things can be moral patients for different reasons or in different ways, even multiple ways at the same time.