Hi, The A population and the Z population are both composed of merely possible future people, so person-affecting intuitions can’t ground the repugnance. Some impartialist theories (critical level utilitaianism) are explicitly designed to avoid the repugnant conclusion.
The case is analogous to the debate in aggregation about whether one should cure a billion headaches or save someone’s life.
When considering whether to cure a billion headaches or save someone’s life, I’d guess that people’s prioritarian intuition would kick in, and say that it’s better to save the single life. However, when considering whether to cure a billion headaches or to increase one person’s life from ok to awesome, I imagine that most people prefer to cure a billion headaches. I think this latter situation is more analogous to the repugnant conclusion. Since people’s intuition differ in this case and in the repugnant conclusion, I claim that “The repugnance of the repugnant conclusion in no way stems from the fact that the people involved are in the future” is incorrect. The fact that the repugnant conclusion concerns is about merely possible people clearly matters for people’s intuition in some way.
I agree that the repugnace can’t be grounded by saying that merely possible people don’t matter at all. But there are other possible mechanics that treat merely possible people differently from existing people, that can ground the repugnance. For example, the paper that we’re discussing under!
Hi, The A population and the Z population are both composed of merely possible future people, so person-affecting intuitions can’t ground the repugnance. Some impartialist theories (critical level utilitaianism) are explicitly designed to avoid the repugnant conclusion.
The case is analogous to the debate in aggregation about whether one should cure a billion headaches or save someone’s life.
When considering whether to cure a billion headaches or save someone’s life, I’d guess that people’s prioritarian intuition would kick in, and say that it’s better to save the single life. However, when considering whether to cure a billion headaches or to increase one person’s life from ok to awesome, I imagine that most people prefer to cure a billion headaches. I think this latter situation is more analogous to the repugnant conclusion. Since people’s intuition differ in this case and in the repugnant conclusion, I claim that “The repugnance of the repugnant conclusion in no way stems from the fact that the people involved are in the future” is incorrect. The fact that the repugnant conclusion concerns is about merely possible people clearly matters for people’s intuition in some way.
I agree that the repugnace can’t be grounded by saying that merely possible people don’t matter at all. But there are other possible mechanics that treat merely possible people differently from existing people, that can ground the repugnance. For example, the paper that we’re discussing under!