Some people claim we should care about only those future people that will actually exist, not those that could have but won’t.
It’s a bit hard to make sense of what that means, but in any case, it’s unclear what they want to say when we are uncertain about who will exist, whether because of uncertainty about our own future actions or uncertainty about how other events beyond our control will play out.
Further, I wonder if how we approach uncertainty about who will exist in the future should be treated differently from uncertainty about who currently exists?
Suppose there are between 1-5 people trapped at the bottom of the well, but we don’t know exactly how many. It seems hard to argue that we should discount the uncertain existence of those people by more than their probability of existing.
Some people claim we should care about only those future people that will actually exist, not those that could have but won’t.
It’s a bit hard to make sense of what that means, but in any case, it’s unclear what they want to say when we are uncertain about who will exist, whether because of uncertainty about our own future actions or uncertainty about how other events beyond our control will play out.
Further, I wonder if how we approach uncertainty about who will exist in the future should be treated differently from uncertainty about who currently exists?
Suppose there are between 1-5 people trapped at the bottom of the well, but we don’t know exactly how many. It seems hard to argue that we should discount the uncertain existence of those people by more than their probability of existing.