I think Thomas did not take a stance on whether it was axiological or deontic in the GPI working paper, and instead just described the structure of a possible view. Pummer described his as specifically deontic and not axiological.
Iām not sure what should be classified as axiological or how important the distinction is. Iām certainly giving up the independence of irrelevant alternatives, but I think I can still rank outcomes in a way that depends on the option set.
I tend to be sceptical of appeals to value as option-set dependent as a means of defending person-affecting views, for the reason that we neednāt imagine outcomes as things that someone is able to choose to bring about, as opposed to just something that happens to be the case. If you imagine the possible outcomes this way, then you canāt appeal to option-set dependence to block the various arguments, since the outcomes are not options for anyone to realize. And if, say, it makes the outcome better if an additional happy person happens to exist without anyone making it so, then it is hard to see why it should be otherwise when someone brings about that the additional happy person exists. (Compare footnote 9 in this paper/āreport.)
I think this bit from the footnote helped clarify, since I wasnāt sure what you meant in your comment:
Note, however, that there is no assumption that dāf are outcomes for anyone to choose, as opposed to outcomes that might arise naturally. Thus, it is not clear how the appeal to choice set dependent betterness can be used to block the argument that f is not worse than d, since there are no choice sets in play here.
I might be inclined to compare outcome distributions using the same person-affecting rules as I would for option sets, whether or not theyāre being chosen by anyone. I think this can make sense on actualist person-affecting views, illustrated with my āBest in the outcome argumentās here, which is framed in terms of betterness (between two outcome distributions) and not choice. (The āDeliberation path argumentā is framed in terms of choice.)
Then, Iād disagree with this:
And if, say, it makes the outcome better if an additional happy person happens to exist without anyone making it so
I think Thomas did not take a stance on whether it was axiological or deontic in the GPI working paper, and instead just described the structure of a possible view. Pummer described his as specifically deontic and not axiological.
Iām not sure what should be classified as axiological or how important the distinction is. Iām certainly giving up the independence of irrelevant alternatives, but I think I can still rank outcomes in a way that depends on the option set.
I tend to be sceptical of appeals to value as option-set dependent as a means of defending person-affecting views, for the reason that we neednāt imagine outcomes as things that someone is able to choose to bring about, as opposed to just something that happens to be the case. If you imagine the possible outcomes this way, then you canāt appeal to option-set dependence to block the various arguments, since the outcomes are not options for anyone to realize. And if, say, it makes the outcome better if an additional happy person happens to exist without anyone making it so, then it is hard to see why it should be otherwise when someone brings about that the additional happy person exists. (Compare footnote 9 in this paper/āreport.)
Hmm, interesting.
I think this bit from the footnote helped clarify, since I wasnāt sure what you meant in your comment:
I might be inclined to compare outcome distributions using the same person-affecting rules as I would for option sets, whether or not theyāre being chosen by anyone. I think this can make sense on actualist person-affecting views, illustrated with my āBest in the outcome argumentās here, which is framed in terms of betterness (between two outcome distributions) and not choice. (The āDeliberation path argumentā is framed in terms of choice.)
Then, Iād disagree with this:
Nice argument, I hadnāt heard that before!
Iām pretty sure that Broome gives an argument of this kind in Weighing Lives!