It’s uncontroversial that creating a person with a bad life inflicts on them a serious moral wrong.
This seems possibly true to me, but not obviously the case, and definitely not uncontroversial. I would guess many people who lived unfortunate lives would nonetheless disagree that their parents inflicted a moral wrong upon them by conceiving them. Similarly, I don’t think I have ever heard anyone suggest that children who suffer at the hands of abusers or terrorists were first wronged, not by their tormentor, but by their parents. Even in bleak circumstances, so long as the parents didn’t intend to make things bad for the children, I think most people would refrain from such a judgement.
Maybe this is just an ex post vs. ex ante distinction? If children with unfortunate lives think they just got unlucky and think their lives would have been positive in expectancy, they might not think that their parents did anything morally wrong. But they might feel differently if the parents knew their children would have a very serious genetic medical condition.
(But this is wild speculation, I have not checked for any empirical data on this.)
I guess it was unclear that here I was assuming that the creator knows with certainty all the evaluative contents of the life they’re creating. (As in the Wilbur and Michael thought experiments.) I would be surprised if anyone disagreed that creating a life you know won’t be worth living, assuming no other effects, is wrong. But I’d agree that the claim about lives not worth living in expectation isn’t uncontroversial, though I endorse it.
This seems possibly true to me, but not obviously the case, and definitely not uncontroversial. I would guess many people who lived unfortunate lives would nonetheless disagree that their parents inflicted a moral wrong upon them by conceiving them. Similarly, I don’t think I have ever heard anyone suggest that children who suffer at the hands of abusers or terrorists were first wronged, not by their tormentor, but by their parents. Even in bleak circumstances, so long as the parents didn’t intend to make things bad for the children, I think most people would refrain from such a judgement.
Maybe this is just an ex post vs. ex ante distinction? If children with unfortunate lives think they just got unlucky and think their lives would have been positive in expectancy, they might not think that their parents did anything morally wrong. But they might feel differently if the parents knew their children would have a very serious genetic medical condition.
(But this is wild speculation, I have not checked for any empirical data on this.)
I guess it was unclear that here I was assuming that the creator knows with certainty all the evaluative contents of the life they’re creating. (As in the Wilbur and Michael thought experiments.) I would be surprised if anyone disagreed that creating a life you know won’t be worth living, assuming no other effects, is wrong. But I’d agree that the claim about lives not worth living in expectation isn’t uncontroversial, though I endorse it.
[edit: Denise beat me to the punch :)]