You are rightly grasping that we disagree, but I don’t think you are understanding my view (and to be clear, reasonable people can disagree about this).
My wife and I are debating whether we will have more children or not. Having another child is desirable to us. So much so that she’s willing to undergo the relatively risky process of child birth to have another one. However, failing to have another child is significantly less bad than losing one of our existing children, IMO. I’d even say that, failing to have 100 more children is significantly less bad than losing one of our existing children. The reason why is that the child who never existed is not sentient and so does not experience any deprivation. They do not suffer. And my suffering of that abstract loss is not nearly as bad as would be the suffering I would experience losing a living child who I know.
Now you may disagree with that, and mourn all the lost utility, and that is a reasonable perspective, but its not mine, and as you can see, this is a deeper philosophical difference and not some sort of misunderstanding about expected utility or something like that.
FYI, about this sentence: “X risks aren’t especially bad because of all the utility lost … they’re bad because after they happen there’s never any utility again.” I don’t really see a difference between these two statements.
I agree with Craig here. I’ve written about problems with most conceptions of utility people use and describe alternatives that I think better match what Craig is saying in this sequence.
You are rightly grasping that we disagree, but I don’t think you are understanding my view (and to be clear, reasonable people can disagree about this).
My wife and I are debating whether we will have more children or not. Having another child is desirable to us. So much so that she’s willing to undergo the relatively risky process of child birth to have another one. However, failing to have another child is significantly less bad than losing one of our existing children, IMO. I’d even say that, failing to have 100 more children is significantly less bad than losing one of our existing children. The reason why is that the child who never existed is not sentient and so does not experience any deprivation. They do not suffer. And my suffering of that abstract loss is not nearly as bad as would be the suffering I would experience losing a living child who I know.
Now you may disagree with that, and mourn all the lost utility, and that is a reasonable perspective, but its not mine, and as you can see, this is a deeper philosophical difference and not some sort of misunderstanding about expected utility or something like that.
FYI, about this sentence: “X risks aren’t especially bad because of all the utility lost … they’re bad because after they happen there’s never any utility again.” I don’t really see a difference between these two statements.
I agree with Craig here. I’ve written about problems with most conceptions of utility people use and describe alternatives that I think better match what Craig is saying in this sequence.