You can choose between three possible acts. When you perform act A, a child (let’s call her Afiya) is born, gets malaria, and dies. Under act B, you cause Afiya not to be born. According to assumption (1), this act is not worse than A. Standard person-affecting view says that it is not wrong to cause someone to exist whose life is net positive, so A is not worse than B. Under act C, you cause Afiya to be born and prevent her from getting malaria. This beats act A according to (2), and is not better than act B according to (1). Thus, A = B, B ≥ C, and C > A. But this creates a contradiction: B > A and B = A.
If the fact that “act [B] is not worse than A” leads to the equation A = B, then why does the fact “[act C] is not better than act B” lead to the equation B ≥ C? It would make more sense if you simply said B = C, as the current equation seems to raise the possibility that B is better than C without offering any justification for that view.
You could claim that causing someone to come into existence and have a happy life but then die prematurely is a bad act. Some people do claim this, but most people don’t and I thought it was sufficiently implausible that it was worth rejecting. If you do make this assumption, it raises new concerns.
You wrote that act B (nonexistence) is greater than or equal to act C (full happy life). I understand that they’re equal under a standard person affecting view, but I’m asking if there’s any view under which act B is greater. If there’s no such view, it may make more sense to say B = C instead of B ≥ C, as the latter equation implies that such a view does exist.
If the fact that “act [B] is not worse than A” leads to the equation A = B, then why does the fact “[act C] is not better than act B” lead to the equation B ≥ C? It would make more sense if you simply said B = C, as the current equation seems to raise the possibility that B is better than C without offering any justification for that view.
You could claim that causing someone to come into existence and have a happy life but then die prematurely is a bad act. Some people do claim this, but most people don’t and I thought it was sufficiently implausible that it was worth rejecting. If you do make this assumption, it raises new concerns.
You wrote that act B (nonexistence) is greater than or equal to act C (full happy life). I understand that they’re equal under a standard person affecting view, but I’m asking if there’s any view under which act B is greater. If there’s no such view, it may make more sense to say B = C instead of B ≥ C, as the latter equation implies that such a view does exist.
Sure you could say that, but it doesn’t matter because A = B, B = C, and C > A is still a contradiction.
Okay thanks. Just wanted to clarify.
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