I agree that some instances of replacement seem good, but I suspect the ones I’d agree with are only good in (asymmetric) preference-affecting ways. On the specific cases you mention:
Generational turnover
I’d be inclined against it unless
it’s actually on the whole preferred (e.g. aggregating attitudes) by the people being replaced, or
the future generations would have lesser regrets or negative attitudes towards aspects of their own lives, or suffer less (per year, say). Pummer (2024) resolves some non-identity cases this way, while avoiding antinatalism (although I am fairly sympathetic to antinatalism).
not blindly marrying the first person you fall in love with
people typically (almost always?) care or will care about their own well-being per se in some way, and blindly marrying the first person you fall in love with is risky for that
more generally, a bad marriage can be counterproductive for most of what you care or will care to achieve
future negative attitudes (e.g. suffering) from the marriage or for things to be different can count against it
helping children to develop new interests:
they do or will care about their well-being per se, and developing interests benefits that
developing interests can have instrumental value for other attitudes they hold or are likely to eventually hold either way, e.g. having common interests with others, making friends, not being bored
developing new interests is often (usually? almost always?) a case of discoveringdispositional attitudes they already have or would have had anyway. For example, there’s already a fact of the matter, based in a child’s brain as it already is or will be either way, whether they would enjoy certain aspects of some activity.[1] So, we can just count unknown dispositional attitudes on preference-affecting views. I’m sympathetic to counting dispositional attitudes anyway for various reasons, and whether or not they’re known doesn’t seem very morally significant in itself.
Plus, the things that get reinforced, and so may shift some of their attitudes, typically get reinforced because of such dispositional attitudes: we come to desire the things we’re already disposed to enjoy, with the experienced pleasure reinforcing our desires.
I agree that some instances of replacement seem good, but I suspect the ones I’d agree with are only good in (asymmetric) preference-affecting ways. On the specific cases you mention:
Generational turnover
I’d be inclined against it unless
it’s actually on the whole preferred (e.g. aggregating attitudes) by the people being replaced, or
the future generations would have lesser regrets or negative attitudes towards aspects of their own lives, or suffer less (per year, say). Pummer (2024) resolves some non-identity cases this way, while avoiding antinatalism (although I am fairly sympathetic to antinatalism).
not blindly marrying the first person you fall in love with
people typically (almost always?) care or will care about their own well-being per se in some way, and blindly marrying the first person you fall in love with is risky for that
more generally, a bad marriage can be counterproductive for most of what you care or will care to achieve
future negative attitudes (e.g. suffering) from the marriage or for things to be different can count against it
helping children to develop new interests:
they do or will care about their well-being per se, and developing interests benefits that
developing interests can have instrumental value for other attitudes they hold or are likely to eventually hold either way, e.g. having common interests with others, making friends, not being bored
developing new interests is often (usually? almost always?) a case of discovering dispositional attitudes they already have or would have had anyway. For example, there’s already a fact of the matter, based in a child’s brain as it already is or will be either way, whether they would enjoy certain aspects of some activity.[1] So, we can just count unknown dispositional attitudes on preference-affecting views. I’m sympathetic to counting dispositional attitudes anyway for various reasons, and whether or not they’re known doesn’t seem very morally significant in itself.
Plus, the things that get reinforced, and so may shift some of their attitudes, typically get reinforced because of such dispositional attitudes: we come to desire the things we’re already disposed to enjoy, with the experienced pleasure reinforcing our desires.