As someone with some sort of person-affecting view, I think there’s a relevant distinction to be made between (1) not caring about potential/future people, and (2) being neutral about how many potential/future people exist. Personally, I do care about future people, so I wouldn’t sign the binding oath. In 50 years, if we don’t go extinct, there will be lots of people existing who don’t exist now—I want those people to have good lives, even though they are only potential people now. For me, taking action so that future people are happy falls under ‘making people happy’.
Thank you both. I think my intuition is like Amber’s here. Obviously I care about any human that will be born as soon as they are born, but I cannot seem to make myself about how many humans there will be (unless that number has an impact on the ones that are around).
As someone with some sort of person-affecting view, I think there’s a relevant distinction to be made between (1) not caring about potential/future people, and (2) being neutral about how many potential/future people exist. Personally, I do care about future people, so I wouldn’t sign the binding oath. In 50 years, if we don’t go extinct, there will be lots of people existing who don’t exist now—I want those people to have good lives, even though they are only potential people now. For me, taking action so that future people are happy falls under ‘making people happy’.
Thank you both.
I think my intuition is like Amber’s here. Obviously I care about any human that will be born as soon as they are born, but I cannot seem to make myself about how many humans there will be (unless that number has an impact on the ones that are around).