I found this post very thought-provoking (I want to write a paper in this area at some point) so might pop back with a couple more thoughts.
Arden, you said this decreased your confidence that person-affecting views can be made to work, but I’m not sure I understand your thinking here.
To check, was this just because you thought the counterpart stuff was fishy, or because you thought it has radical implications? I’m assuming it’s the former, because it wouldn’t make sense to decrease one’s confidence in a view on account of it’s more or less obvious implications: the gist of person-affecting views is that they give less weight to merely possible lives than impersonal views do. Also, please show me a view in population ethics without (according to someone) ‘radical implications’!
(Nerdy aside I’m not going to attempt to put in plain English: FWIW, I also think counterpart relations are fishy. It seems you can have a de re or de dicto person-affecting views (I think this is the same as the ‘narrow’ vs ‘wide’ distinction). On the former, what matters is the particular individuals who do or will exist (whatever we do). On the latter, what matters is the individuals who do or will exist, whomsoever they happen to be. Meacham’s is of the latter camp. For a different view which allows takes de dicto lives as what matters see Bader (forthcoming).
It seems to me that, if one is sympathetic to person-affecting views, it is because one finds these two theses plausible 1. only personal value is morally significant—things can only be good or bad if they are good or bad for someone and 2. non-comparativism, that is, that existence can not be better or worse for someone than non-existence. But if one accepts (1) and (2) it’s obvious lives de re matter, but unclear why one would care about lives de dicto. What makes counterpart relations fishy is that they are unmotivated by what seem to be the key assumptions in the area.
You’re right radical implications are par for the course in population ethics, and that this isn’t that surprising. However, I guess this is even more radical than was obvious to me from the spirit of the theory, since the premautre deaths of the presently existing people can be so easily outweighed. I also agree, although a big begrudgingly in this case, that “I strongly dislike the implications!” isn’t a valid argument against something.
I did also think the counterpart relations were fishy, and I like your explanation as to why! The de dicto/de re distinction isn’t someting I’d thought about in this context.
I found this post very thought-provoking (I want to write a paper in this area at some point) so might pop back with a couple more thoughts.
Arden, you said this decreased your confidence that person-affecting views can be made to work, but I’m not sure I understand your thinking here.
To check, was this just because you thought the counterpart stuff was fishy, or because you thought it has radical implications? I’m assuming it’s the former, because it wouldn’t make sense to decrease one’s confidence in a view on account of it’s more or less obvious implications: the gist of person-affecting views is that they give less weight to merely possible lives than impersonal views do. Also, please show me a view in population ethics without (according to someone) ‘radical implications’!
(Nerdy aside I’m not going to attempt to put in plain English: FWIW, I also think counterpart relations are fishy. It seems you can have a de re or de dicto person-affecting views (I think this is the same as the ‘narrow’ vs ‘wide’ distinction). On the former, what matters is the particular individuals who do or will exist (whatever we do). On the latter, what matters is the individuals who do or will exist, whomsoever they happen to be. Meacham’s is of the latter camp. For a different view which allows takes de dicto lives as what matters see Bader (forthcoming).
It seems to me that, if one is sympathetic to person-affecting views, it is because one finds these two theses plausible 1. only personal value is morally significant—things can only be good or bad if they are good or bad for someone and 2. non-comparativism, that is, that existence can not be better or worse for someone than non-existence. But if one accepts (1) and (2) it’s obvious lives de re matter, but unclear why one would care about lives de dicto. What makes counterpart relations fishy is that they are unmotivated by what seem to be the key assumptions in the area.
You’re right radical implications are par for the course in population ethics, and that this isn’t that surprising. However, I guess this is even more radical than was obvious to me from the spirit of the theory, since the premautre deaths of the presently existing people can be so easily outweighed. I also agree, although a big begrudgingly in this case, that “I strongly dislike the implications!” isn’t a valid argument against something.
I did also think the counterpart relations were fishy, and I like your explanation as to why! The de dicto/de re distinction isn’t someting I’d thought about in this context.