On the second, the obvious counterargument is that it applies just as well to e.g. murder; in the case where the person is killed, “there is no sensible comparison to be made” between their status and that in the case where they are alive
Person-affecting views are those will hold not all possible people matter. Once you’ve decided who matters (the present, necessary or actual people), it’s then a different question how you think about the badness of death for those that matter. You can say creating people isn’t good/bad, but it’s still bad if already existing people die early. FWIW, I also find Epicureanism about the badness of death rather plausible, i.e. I don’t think we compare the value of living longer for someone. I recognise this makes me something of a ‘moral hipster’ but I think the arguments for it are pretty good, although I won’t get into that here. As such, I think death, whether by murder or other means, isn’t bad for someone. I think we tend to have the intuition that murder is wrong over and above what it deprives the deceased from, which it why we think it’s just as wrong to murder someone with 1 month vs 10 years left to live. hence I think you’re getting at a deontological intuition, not one about value.
I find the stuff about posthumous harms and benefits very implausible. If Socrates wants us to say ‘Socrates’ and we do, does it really make his life go better?
Person-affecting views are those will hold not all possible people matter. Once you’ve decided who matters (the present, necessary or actual people), it’s then a different question how you think about the badness of death for those that matter. You can say creating people isn’t good/bad, but it’s still bad if already existing people die early. FWIW, I also find Epicureanism about the badness of death rather plausible, i.e. I don’t think we compare the value of living longer for someone. I recognise this makes me something of a ‘moral hipster’ but I think the arguments for it are pretty good, although I won’t get into that here. As such, I think death, whether by murder or other means, isn’t bad for someone. I think we tend to have the intuition that murder is wrong over and above what it deprives the deceased from, which it why we think it’s just as wrong to murder someone with 1 month vs 10 years left to live. hence I think you’re getting at a deontological intuition, not one about value.
I find the stuff about posthumous harms and benefits very implausible. If Socrates wants us to say ‘Socrates’ and we do, does it really make his life go better?