That’s very unintuitive to me. If “the good life” is significantly more valuable than a meh life, and a meh life is just as valuable as nonexistence, doesn’t it follow that a flourishing life is significantly more valuable than nonexistence?
Under the asymmetry, any life is at most as valuable as nonexistence, and depending on the particular view of the asymmetry, may be as good only when faced with particular sets of options.
If you can bring a good life into existence or none, it is at least permissible to choose none, and under basically any asymmetry that doesn’t lead to principled antinatalism (basically all but perfect lives are bad), it’s permissible to choose either.
If you can bring a good life into existence or none, it is at least permissible to choose none, and under a non-antinatalist asymmetry, it’s permissible to choose either.
If you can bring a good life into existence, a flourishing life into existence or none, it is at least permissible to choose none, and under a wide view of the asymmetry (basically to solve the nonidentity problem), it is not permissible to bring the merely good life into existence. Under a non-antinatalist asymmetry (which can be wide or narrow), it is permissible to bring the flourishing life into existence. Under a narrow (not wide) non-antinatalist asymmetry, all three options are permissible.
If you accept transitivity and the independence of irrelevant alternatives, instead of having the flourishing life better than none, you could have a principled antinatalism:
Thanks! I can see that for people who accept (relatively strong versions of) the asymmetry. But (I think) we’re talking about what a wide range of ethical views say—is it at all common for proponents of objective list theories of well-being to hold that the good life is worse than nonexistence? (I imagine, if they thought it was that bad, they wouldn’t call it “the good life”?)
is it at all common for proponents of objective list theories of well-being to hold that the good life is worse than nonexistence?
I think this would be pretty much only antinatalists who hold stronger forms of the asymmetry, and this kind of antinatalism (and indeed all antinatalism) is relatively rare, so I’d guess not.
Under the asymmetry, any life is at most as valuable as nonexistence, and depending on the particular view of the asymmetry, may be as good only when faced with particular sets of options.
If you can bring a good life into existence or none, it is at least permissible to choose none, and under basically any asymmetry that doesn’t lead to principled antinatalism (basically all but perfect lives are bad), it’s permissible to choose either.
If you can bring a good life into existence or none, it is at least permissible to choose none, and under a non-antinatalist asymmetry, it’s permissible to choose either.
If you can bring a good life into existence, a flourishing life into existence or none, it is at least permissible to choose none, and under a wide view of the asymmetry (basically to solve the nonidentity problem), it is not permissible to bring the merely good life into existence. Under a non-antinatalist asymmetry (which can be wide or narrow), it is permissible to bring the flourishing life into existence. Under a narrow (not wide) non-antinatalist asymmetry, all three options are permissible.
If you accept transitivity and the independence of irrelevant alternatives, instead of having the flourishing life better than none, you could have a principled antinatalism:
meh life < good life < flourishing life ≤ none,
although this doesn’t follow.
Thanks! I can see that for people who accept (relatively strong versions of) the asymmetry. But (I think) we’re talking about what a wide range of ethical views say—is it at all common for proponents of objective list theories of well-being to hold that the good life is worse than nonexistence? (I imagine, if they thought it was that bad, they wouldn’t call it “the good life”?)
I think this would be pretty much only antinatalists who hold stronger forms of the asymmetry, and this kind of antinatalism (and indeed all antinatalism) is relatively rare, so I’d guess not.