If you don’t have a child, you are not decreasing your nonexistent offspring’s welfare/preference satisfaction. Beings who do not exist do not have preferences and cannot suffer. Once they exist (and become sentient), their preferences and welfare matter. This may not be hardcoded into the universe, but it’s not hard to distinguish between having a child and not having one.
I meant within one person. If you believe that there is a fundamental difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal comparisons, then you’re going to run into a wall trying to define persons… It doesn’t seem to me that this really checks out, putting aside the question of why one would want simple answers here as a non-cognitivist.
If you don’t have a child, you are not decreasing your nonexistent offspring’s welfare/preference satisfaction. Beings who do not exist do not have preferences and cannot suffer. Once they exist (and become sentient), their preferences and welfare matter. This may not be hardcoded into the universe, but it’s not hard to distinguish between having a child and not having one.
I meant within one person. If you believe that there is a fundamental difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal comparisons, then you’re going to run into a wall trying to define persons… It doesn’t seem to me that this really checks out, putting aside the question of why one would want simple answers here as a non-cognitivist.