EAs tend to reject person-affecting views of population ethics. This, however, has uncomfortable implications for some hot-button issues on the left, like reproductive rights and environmental ethics.
I can see why left wing views on abortion would biased people against totalist views, because they do not want to accept the implication that someone’s desire to abort their child could be ‘outweighed’ by the interests of a possible-person. And I guess totalism would also imply we should have more children, in contradiction to the idea that we should have fewer to protect the environment. But it would naively seem that being concerned about the environment would make you more amenable to longtermist views (as distinct from totalism), because if you don’t care about future people then most of the damage from climate change can be ignored.
And I guess totalism would also imply we should have more children, in contradiction to the idea that we should have fewer to protect the environment.
This is mostly what I was referring to. Matt Yglesias has often said that he gets a lot of pushback against his One Billion Americans book from leftists who implictly have some sort of prior against both population and economic growth.
Also, as Michael says below, I think they (like most people who aren’t moral philosophers) just don’t really have coherent population ethics.
Also, person-affecting views can lead to the bizarre conclusion that we don’t need to worry much about contributing to climate change because the people in the future wouldn’t have existed if we hadn’t done so—so we won’t actually have harmed them (provided their lives are net good).
I would assume that progressives concerned with the welfare of future generations (maybe most?) don’t have these specific kinds of person-affecting views, although most probably have not thought that much about population ethics or metaphysical identity issues at all. I think the closest steelman might look like:
the wide and soft asymmetry view here (Thomas) or here (Frick), which does fine on the non-identity problem,
dying is bad, so extinction would at least be bad for the people who die and don’t want to,
and maybe they separately value the preservation of humanity, like this (Frick), or something like an animal conservationist way, but more humans isn’t (always) better. Or, they aren’t actually person-affecting, but recognize decreasing marginal value in additional lives as a population increases.
I can see why left wing views on abortion would biased people against totalist views, because they do not want to accept the implication that someone’s desire to abort their child could be ‘outweighed’ by the interests of a possible-person. And I guess totalism would also imply we should have more children, in contradiction to the idea that we should have fewer to protect the environment. But it would naively seem that being concerned about the environment would make you more amenable to longtermist views (as distinct from totalism), because if you don’t care about future people then most of the damage from climate change can be ignored.
This is mostly what I was referring to. Matt Yglesias has often said that he gets a lot of pushback against his One Billion Americans book from leftists who implictly have some sort of prior against both population and economic growth.
Also, as Michael says below, I think they (like most people who aren’t moral philosophers) just don’t really have coherent population ethics.
Also, person-affecting views can lead to the bizarre conclusion that we don’t need to worry much about contributing to climate change because the people in the future wouldn’t have existed if we hadn’t done so—so we won’t actually have harmed them (provided their lives are net good).
AKA the non-identity problem.
I would assume that progressives concerned with the welfare of future generations (maybe most?) don’t have these specific kinds of person-affecting views, although most probably have not thought that much about population ethics or metaphysical identity issues at all. I think the closest steelman might look like:
the wide and soft asymmetry view here (Thomas) or here (Frick), which does fine on the non-identity problem,
dying is bad, so extinction would at least be bad for the people who die and don’t want to,
and maybe they separately value the preservation of humanity, like this (Frick), or something like an animal conservationist way, but more humans isn’t (always) better. Or, they aren’t actually person-affecting, but recognize decreasing marginal value in additional lives as a population increases.