[Apologies for length, but I think these points are worth sharing in full.]
As someone who is highly sympathetic to the procreation asymmetry, I have to say, I still found this post quite moving. I’ve had, and continue to have, joys profound enough to know the sense of awe you’re gesturing at. If there were no costs, I’d want those joys to be shared by new beings too.
Unfortunately, assuming that we’re talking about practically relevant cases where creating a “happy” life also entails suffering of the created person and other beings, there are costs in expectation. (I assume no one has moral objections to creating utterly flawless lives, so the former is the sense in which I read “neutrality.” See also this comment. Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood.) And I find those costs qualitatively more serious than the benefits. Let me see if I can convey where I’m coming from.
I found it surprising that you wrote:
I have refrained, overall, from framing the preceding discussion in specifically moral terms — implying, for example, that I am obligated to create Michael, instead of going on my walk. I think I have reasons to create Michael that have to do with the significance of living forMichael; but that’s not yet to say, for example, that I owe it to Michael to create him, or that I am wronging Michael if I don’t.
Because to me this is exactly the heart of the asymmetry. It’s uncontroversial that creating a person with a bad life inflicts on them a serious moral wrong. Those of us who endorse the asymmetry don’t see such a moral wrong involved in not creating a happy life. (If one is a welfarist consequentialist, a fortiori this calls into question the idea that the uncreated happy person is “wronged” in any prudential sense.)
To flesh that out a bit: You acknowledged, in sketching out Michael’s hypothetical life, these pains:
I see a fight with that same woman, a sense of betrayal, months of regret. … I see him on his deathbed … cancer blooming in his stomach
When I imagine the prospect of creating Michael, these moments weigh pretty gravely. I feel the pang of knowing just how utterly crushing a conflict with the most important person in one’s life can be; the pit in the gut, the fear, shock, and desperation. I haven’t had cancer, but I at least know the fear of death, and can only imagine it gets more haunting when one actually expects to die soon. By all reports, cancer is clearly a fate I couldn’t possibly wish on anyone, and suffering it slowly in a hospital sounds nothing short of harrowing.
I simply can’t comprehend creating those moments in good conscience, short of preventing greater pain broadly construed. It seems cruel to do so. By contrast, although Michael-while-happy would feel grateful to exist, it doesn’t seem cruel to me at all to not invite his nonexistent self to the “party,” in your words. As you acknowledge, the objection is that “if [he] hadn’t been created, [he] wouldn’t exist, and there would be no one that [my] choice was ‘worse for.’” I don’t see a strong enough reason to think the Michael-while-happy experiences override the Michael-while-miserable experiences, given the difference in moral gravity. It seems cold comfort to tell the moments of Michael that beg for relief, “I’m sorry for the pain I gave you, but it’s worth it for the party to come.”
I feel inclined, not to “disagree” with them, but rather to inform them that they are wrong
Likewise I feel inclined to inform the Michael-creators that they are wrong, in implicitly claiming that the majority vote of Michael-while-happy can override the pleas of Michael-while-miserable. Make no mistake, I abhor scope neglect. But this is not a question of ignoring numbers, any more than someone who would not torture a person for any number of beautiful lifeless planets created in a corner of the universe where no one could ever observe them. It’s about prioritizing needs over wants, the tragic over the precious.
Lastly, you mention the golden rule as part of your case. I personally would not want to be forced by anyone—including my past self, who often acts in a state of myopia and doesn’t remember how awful the worst moments are—to suffer terribly because they judged it was worth it for the goods in life.
I do of course have some moral uncertainty on this. There are some counterintuitive implications to the view I sketched here. But I wouldn’t say this is an unnecessary addition to the hardness of population ethics.
Because to me this is exactly the heart of the asymmetry. It’s uncontroversial that creating a person with a bad life inflicts on them a serious moral wrong. Those of us who endorse the asymmetry don’t see such a moral wrong involved in not creating a happy life.
+1. I think many who have asymmetric sympathies might say that there is a strong aesthetic pull to bringing about a life like Michael’s, but that there is an overriding moral responsibility not to create intense suffering.
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.
[Apologies for length, but I think these points are worth sharing in full.]
As someone who is highly sympathetic to the procreation asymmetry, I have to say, I still found this post quite moving. I’ve had, and continue to have, joys profound enough to know the sense of awe you’re gesturing at. If there were no costs, I’d want those joys to be shared by new beings too.
Unfortunately, assuming that we’re talking about practically relevant cases where creating a “happy” life also entails suffering of the created person and other beings, there are costs in expectation. (I assume no one has moral objections to creating utterly flawless lives, so the former is the sense in which I read “neutrality.” See also this comment. Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood.) And I find those costs qualitatively more serious than the benefits. Let me see if I can convey where I’m coming from.
I found it surprising that you wrote:
Because to me this is exactly the heart of the asymmetry. It’s uncontroversial that creating a person with a bad life inflicts on them a serious moral wrong. Those of us who endorse the asymmetry don’t see such a moral wrong involved in not creating a happy life. (If one is a welfarist consequentialist, a fortiori this calls into question the idea that the uncreated happy person is “wronged” in any prudential sense.)
To flesh that out a bit: You acknowledged, in sketching out Michael’s hypothetical life, these pains:
When I imagine the prospect of creating Michael, these moments weigh pretty gravely. I feel the pang of knowing just how utterly crushing a conflict with the most important person in one’s life can be; the pit in the gut, the fear, shock, and desperation. I haven’t had cancer, but I at least know the fear of death, and can only imagine it gets more haunting when one actually expects to die soon. By all reports, cancer is clearly a fate I couldn’t possibly wish on anyone, and suffering it slowly in a hospital sounds nothing short of harrowing.
I simply can’t comprehend creating those moments in good conscience, short of preventing greater pain broadly construed. It seems cruel to do so. By contrast, although Michael-while-happy would feel grateful to exist, it doesn’t seem cruel to me at all to not invite his nonexistent self to the “party,” in your words. As you acknowledge, the objection is that “if [he] hadn’t been created, [he] wouldn’t exist, and there would be no one that [my] choice was ‘worse for.’” I don’t see a strong enough reason to think the Michael-while-happy experiences override the Michael-while-miserable experiences, given the difference in moral gravity. It seems cold comfort to tell the moments of Michael that beg for relief, “I’m sorry for the pain I gave you, but it’s worth it for the party to come.”
Likewise I feel inclined to inform the Michael-creators that they are wrong, in implicitly claiming that the majority vote of Michael-while-happy can override the pleas of Michael-while-miserable. Make no mistake, I abhor scope neglect. But this is not a question of ignoring numbers, any more than someone who would not torture a person for any number of beautiful lifeless planets created in a corner of the universe where no one could ever observe them. It’s about prioritizing needs over wants, the tragic over the precious.
Lastly, you mention the golden rule as part of your case. I personally would not want to be forced by anyone—including my past self, who often acts in a state of myopia and doesn’t remember how awful the worst moments are—to suffer terribly because they judged it was worth it for the goods in life.
I do of course have some moral uncertainty on this. There are some counterintuitive implications to the view I sketched here. But I wouldn’t say this is an unnecessary addition to the hardness of population ethics.
+1. I think many who have asymmetric sympathies might say that there is a strong aesthetic pull to bringing about a life like Michael’s, but that there is an overriding moral responsibility not to create intense suffering.
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 :)]