Thank you for your comment and for your explanation!
I agree that if you know what improving the future means (to you), and if that future matters to you, then you have an optimal population size to aim at. Granted that if improving the future means something different to you[1], then the optimal population size to aim at will be different. And if you’re time-inconsistent in what improving the future means to you, you are then time-inconsistent in the optimal population size to aim at. But that supports the consistency, not the inconsistency, of the if-then statement/relationship.
In my paraphrase/agreement above, I added “if that future matters to you”. And herein I add the longtermism. I’m, indeed, not solving population ethics per se. I’m saying that for a (strong) longtermist the problem reduces to “what is now the optimal population size (for me)?”. (Still a significant and substantial empirical question.)
A tangential other point your last paragraph reminded me of: at end of the future, so to say, and knowingly so, longtermism would no longer make sense, and these above implications for a resolution of population ethics would thus neither.
I also liked your comment that most philosophers would ‘not worry too much’ about population ethics ‘in the short-term’. As that was I guess part of my aims. I added a subtitle with a footnote with what I additionally learned from our exchange and the previous comments.
Thank you for your comment and for your explanation!
I agree that if you know what improving the future means (to you), and if that future matters to you, then you have an optimal population size to aim at. Granted that if improving the future means something different to you[1], then the optimal population size to aim at will be different. And if you’re time-inconsistent in what improving the future means to you, you are then time-inconsistent in the optimal population size to aim at. But that supports the consistency, not the inconsistency, of the if-then statement/relationship.
In my paraphrase/agreement above, I added “if that future matters to you”. And herein I add the longtermism. I’m, indeed, not solving population ethics per se. I’m saying that for a (strong) longtermist the problem reduces to “what is now the optimal population size (for me)?”. (Still a significant and substantial empirical question.)
A tangential other point your last paragraph reminded me of: at end of the future, so to say, and knowingly so, longtermism would no longer make sense, and these above implications for a resolution of population ethics would thus neither.
A more general question, of ethics?
I also liked your comment that most philosophers would ‘not worry too much’ about population ethics ‘in the short-term’. As that was I guess part of my aims. I added a subtitle with a footnote with what I additionally learned from our exchange and the previous comments.