there’s a difference between choosing to ignore the Drowning Child because there are even more children in the next pond over, and ignoring the drowning children entirely because they might grow up to do bad things.
This is a fantastic summary of why I feel much more averse to this argument than to statements like “animal welfare is more important than human welfare” (which I am neutral-to-positive on).
Thanks, Karthik. I think not saving distant (not close) drowning children because they may well (not might) do terrible (not bad) things makes much more sense than not saving them because there are more of them. It is quite reasonable to think that not benefiting some people (drowning children) may be for the greater good (if they would cause lots of suffering to farmed animals). In contrast, I do not see how one can justify not decreasing harm just because one could not eliminate all harm.
This is a fantastic summary of why I feel much more averse to this argument than to statements like “animal welfare is more important than human welfare” (which I am neutral-to-positive on).
Thanks, Karthik. I think not saving distant (not close) drowning children because they may well (not might) do terrible (not bad) things makes much more sense than not saving them because there are more of them. It is quite reasonable to think that not benefiting some people (drowning children) may be for the greater good (if they would cause lots of suffering to farmed animals). In contrast, I do not see how one can justify not decreasing harm just because one could not eliminate all harm.