appeal to some form of partiality or personal prerogative seems much more appropriate to me than denying the value of the beneficiaries
I don’t think this solves the problem, at least if one has the intuition (as I do) that it’s not the current existence of the people who are extremely harmed to produce happy lives that makes this tradeoff “very repugnant.” It doesn’t seem any more palatable to allow arbitrarily many people in the long-term future (rather than the present) to suffer for the sake of sufficiently many more added happy lives. Even if those lives aren’t just muzak and potatoes, but very blissful. (One might think that is “horribly evil” or “utterly disastrous,” and isn’t just a theoretical concern either, because in practice increasing the extent of space settlement would in expectation both enable many miserable lives and many more blissful lives.)
ETA: Ideally I’d prefer these discussions not involve labels like “evil” at all. Though I sympathize with wanting to treat this with moral seriousness!
Interesting! Yeah, a committed anti-natalist who regrets all of existence—even in an “approximate utopia”—on the grounds that even a small proportion of very unhappy lives automatically trumps the positive value of a world mostly containing overwhelmingly wonderful, flourishing lives is, IMO, in the grips of… um (trying to word this delicately)… values I strongly disagree with. We will just have very persistent disagreements, in that case!
FWIW, I think those extreme anti-natalist values are unusual, and certainly don’t reflect the kinds of concerns expressed by Setiya that I was responding to in the OP (or other common views in the vicinity, e.g. Melinda Roberts’ “deeper intuition that the existing Ann must in some way come before need-not-ever-exist-at-all Ben”).
certainly don’t reflect the kinds of concerns expressed by Setiya that I was responding to in the OP
I agree. I happen to agree with you that the attempts to accommodate the procreation asymmetry without lexically disvaluing suffering don’t hold up to scrutiny. Setiya’s critique missed the mark pretty hard, e.g. this part just completely ignores that this view violates transitivity:
But the argument is flawed. Neutrality says that having a child with a good enough life is on a par with staying childless, not that the outcome in which you have a child is equally good regardless of their well-being. Consider a frivolous analogy: being a philosopher is on a par with being a poet—neither is strictly better or worse—but it doesn’t follow that being a philosopher is equally good, regardless of the pay.
...Having said that, I do think the “deeper intuition that the existing Ann must in some way come before need-not-ever-exist-at-all Ben” plausibly boils down to some kind of antifrustrationist or tranquilist intuition. Ann comes first because she has actual preferences (/experiences of desire) that get violated when she’s deprived of happiness. Not creating Ben doesn’t violate any preferences of Ben’s.
I don’t think so. I’m sure that Roberts would, for example, think we had more reason to give Ann a lollipop than to bring Ben into existence and give him one, even if Ann would not in any way be frustrated by the lack of a lollipop.
The far more natural explanation is just that we have person-directed reasons to want what is good for Ann, in addition to the impersonal reasons we have to want a better world (realizable by either benefiting Ann or creating & benefiting Ben).
In fairness to Setiya, the whole point of parity relations (as developed, with some sophistication, by Ruth Chang) is that they—unlike traditional value relations—are not meant to be transitive. If you’re not familiar with the idea, I sketch a rough intro here.
I don’t think this solves the problem, at least if one has the intuition (as I do) that it’s not the current existence of the people who are extremely harmed to produce happy lives that makes this tradeoff “very repugnant.” It doesn’t seem any more palatable to allow arbitrarily many people in the long-term future (rather than the present) to suffer for the sake of sufficiently many more added happy lives. Even if those lives aren’t just muzak and potatoes, but very blissful. (One might think that is “horribly evil” or “utterly disastrous,” and isn’t just a theoretical concern either, because in practice increasing the extent of space settlement would in expectation both enable many miserable lives and many more blissful lives.)
ETA: Ideally I’d prefer these discussions not involve labels like “evil” at all. Though I sympathize with wanting to treat this with moral seriousness!
Interesting! Yeah, a committed anti-natalist who regrets all of existence—even in an “approximate utopia”—on the grounds that even a small proportion of very unhappy lives automatically trumps the positive value of a world mostly containing overwhelmingly wonderful, flourishing lives is, IMO, in the grips of… um (trying to word this delicately)… values I strongly disagree with. We will just have very persistent disagreements, in that case!
FWIW, I think those extreme anti-natalist values are unusual, and certainly don’t reflect the kinds of concerns expressed by Setiya that I was responding to in the OP (or other common views in the vicinity, e.g. Melinda Roberts’ “deeper intuition that the existing Ann must in some way come before need-not-ever-exist-at-all Ben”).
I agree. I happen to agree with you that the attempts to accommodate the procreation asymmetry without lexically disvaluing suffering don’t hold up to scrutiny. Setiya’s critique missed the mark pretty hard, e.g. this part just completely ignores that this view violates transitivity:
...Having said that, I do think the “deeper intuition that the existing Ann must in some way come before need-not-ever-exist-at-all Ben” plausibly boils down to some kind of antifrustrationist or tranquilist intuition. Ann comes first because she has actual preferences (/experiences of desire) that get violated when she’s deprived of happiness. Not creating Ben doesn’t violate any preferences of Ben’s.
I don’t think so. I’m sure that Roberts would, for example, think we had more reason to give Ann a lollipop than to bring Ben into existence and give him one, even if Ann would not in any way be frustrated by the lack of a lollipop.
The far more natural explanation is just that we have person-directed reasons to want what is good for Ann, in addition to the impersonal reasons we have to want a better world (realizable by either benefiting Ann or creating & benefiting Ben).
In fairness to Setiya, the whole point of parity relations (as developed, with some sophistication, by Ruth Chang) is that they—unlike traditional value relations—are not meant to be transitive. If you’re not familiar with the idea, I sketch a rough intro here.