âI would say exactly the same for this. If these people are being freshly created, then I donât see the harm in treating them as identical.â
I think you missed my point. How can 1,000 people be identical to 2,000 people? Let me give a more concrete example. Suppose again we have 3 possible outcomes:
(A) (Status quo): 1 person exists at high welfare +X
(B): Original person has welfare reduced to X â 2Ï”, 1000 new people are created at welfare +X
(C): Original person has welfare reduced only to X - Ï”, 2000 new people are created, 1000 at welfare Ï”, and 1000 at welfare X + Ï”.
And you are forced to choose between (B) and (C).
How do you pick? I think you want to say 1000 of the potential new people are âeffectively realâ, but which 1000 are âeffectively realâ in scenario (C)? Is it the 1000 at welfare Ï”? Is it the 1000 at welfare X+Ï”? Is it some mix of the two?
If you take the first route, (B) is strongly preferred, but if you take the second, then (C) would be preferred. Thereâs ambiguity here which needs to be sorted out.
âThen, supposedly no one is effectively real. But actually, Iâm not sure this is a problem. More thinking will be required here to see whether I am right or wrong.â
Thank you for finding and expressing my objection for me! This does seem like a fairly major problem to me.
âSorry, but this is quite incorrect. The people in (C) would want to move to (B).â
No, they wouldnât, because the people in (B) are different to the people in (C). You can assert that you treat them the same, but you canât assert that they are the same. The (B) scenario with different people and the (B) scenario with the same people are both distinct, possible, outcomes, and your theory needs to handle them both. It can give the same answer to both, thatâs fine, but part of the set up of my hypothetical scenario is that the people are different.
âIsnât the very idea of reducing people to their welfare impersonal?â
Not necessarily. So called âperson affectingâ theories say that an act can only be wrong if it makes things worse for someone. Thatâs an example of a theory based on welfare which is not impersonal. Your intuitive justification for your theory seemed to have a similar flavour to this, but if we want to avoid the non-identity problem, we need to reject this appealing sounding principle. It is possible to make things worse even though there is no one who it is worse for. Your âeffectively realâ modification does this, I just think it reduces the intuitive appeal of the argument you gave.
Ah, I understand now. Certainly then there is ambiguity that needs to be sorted out. Iâd like to say again that this is not something the original theory was designed to handle. Everything Iâve been saying in these comments is off the cuff rather than premeditatedâitâs not surprising that there are flaws in the fixes Iâve suggested. Itâs certainly not surprising that the ad hoc fixes donât solve every conceivable problem. And again, it would appear to me that there are plenty of plausible solutions. I guess really that I just need to spend some time evaluating which would be best and then tidy it up in a new post.
âNo, they wouldnât, because the people in (B) are different to the people in (C). You can assert that you treat them the same, but you canât assert that they are the same. The (B) scenario with different people and the (B) scenario with the same people are both distinct, possible, outcomes, and your theory needs to handle them both. It can give the same answer to both, thatâs fine, but part of the set up of my hypothetical scenario is that the people are different.â
Then yes, as I did say in the rather lengthy explanation I gave:
âThe route of disappearing 1000 people and replacing them with 1000 new people is one of the worse routes.â
If you insist that we must get rid of 1000 people and replace them with 1000 different people, then sure, (B) is worse than (C). So now I will remind myself what your objection regarding this was in an earlier comment.
Iâll try explaining again briefly. With this theory, donât think of the (B),(C) etc. as populations but rather as âdistributionsâ the status quo population could take. Thus, as I said:
â(B) is a hypothetical which may be achieved by any route. Whether the resulting people of (B) in the hypothetical are real or imaginary depends on which route you take.â
When a population is not the status quo, it is simply representing a population distribution that you can get to. Whichever population is not the status quo is considered in an abstract, hypothetical sense.
Now you wish to specifically consider the case where (with status quo (C)), everyone in (B) is specified to be different to the people in (C). I stress that this is not the usual sense in which comparisons are made in the theory; it is much more specific. Again, if one insists on this, then since we have to disappear 1000 people to get to (B), (B) is worse.
Your issue with this is that: âthe people in (B) would not want to move to (C), and vice versa, because that would mean they no longer exist. But your theory now gives a strong recommendation for one over the other anyway.â
Now I hope the explanation is fully clear. The distribution of (B) is preferable to people in (C) (i.e. with (C) as the status quo), but if you insist that the only routes to (C) involve getting rid of most of the population and replacing them with 1000 non-identical people, then this is not preferable. When (A) is the status quo, yes, we have a strong preference for (B) over (C) because we donât have to lose 1000 people, and I donât see the problem with considering people with equal welfare who (in the status quo of (A)) are imaginary or âeffectively realâ as identical. In line with a person-affecting outlook, I give more priority to real people than imaginary or effectively real peopleâI only respect the non-identity of real people. And just to add, viewing people as effectively real is not to say that they are really real (since they donât exist yet, even if they are mathematically expected to); itâs only been a way to balance the books for forced decisions.
The outcome is still, as far as I can see, consistent with transitivity and my already-avowed rejection of an objective ordering.
âI would say exactly the same for this. If these people are being freshly created, then I donât see the harm in treating them as identical.â
I think you missed my point. How can 1,000 people be identical to 2,000 people? Let me give a more concrete example. Suppose again we have 3 possible outcomes:
(A) (Status quo): 1 person exists at high welfare +X
(B): Original person has welfare reduced to X â 2Ï”, 1000 new people are created at welfare +X
(C): Original person has welfare reduced only to X - Ï”, 2000 new people are created, 1000 at welfare Ï”, and 1000 at welfare X + Ï”.
And you are forced to choose between (B) and (C).
How do you pick? I think you want to say 1000 of the potential new people are âeffectively realâ, but which 1000 are âeffectively realâ in scenario (C)? Is it the 1000 at welfare Ï”? Is it the 1000 at welfare X+Ï”? Is it some mix of the two?
If you take the first route, (B) is strongly preferred, but if you take the second, then (C) would be preferred. Thereâs ambiguity here which needs to be sorted out.
âThen, supposedly no one is effectively real. But actually, Iâm not sure this is a problem. More thinking will be required here to see whether I am right or wrong.â
Thank you for finding and expressing my objection for me! This does seem like a fairly major problem to me.
âSorry, but this is quite incorrect. The people in (C) would want to move to (B).â
No, they wouldnât, because the people in (B) are different to the people in (C). You can assert that you treat them the same, but you canât assert that they are the same. The (B) scenario with different people and the (B) scenario with the same people are both distinct, possible, outcomes, and your theory needs to handle them both. It can give the same answer to both, thatâs fine, but part of the set up of my hypothetical scenario is that the people are different.
âIsnât the very idea of reducing people to their welfare impersonal?â
Not necessarily. So called âperson affectingâ theories say that an act can only be wrong if it makes things worse for someone. Thatâs an example of a theory based on welfare which is not impersonal. Your intuitive justification for your theory seemed to have a similar flavour to this, but if we want to avoid the non-identity problem, we need to reject this appealing sounding principle. It is possible to make things worse even though there is no one who it is worse for. Your âeffectively realâ modification does this, I just think it reduces the intuitive appeal of the argument you gave.
âLet me give a more concrete example.â
Ah, I understand now. Certainly then there is ambiguity that needs to be sorted out. Iâd like to say again that this is not something the original theory was designed to handle. Everything Iâve been saying in these comments is off the cuff rather than premeditatedâitâs not surprising that there are flaws in the fixes Iâve suggested. Itâs certainly not surprising that the ad hoc fixes donât solve every conceivable problem. And again, it would appear to me that there are plenty of plausible solutions. I guess really that I just need to spend some time evaluating which would be best and then tidy it up in a new post.
âNo, they wouldnât, because the people in (B) are different to the people in (C). You can assert that you treat them the same, but you canât assert that they are the same. The (B) scenario with different people and the (B) scenario with the same people are both distinct, possible, outcomes, and your theory needs to handle them both. It can give the same answer to both, thatâs fine, but part of the set up of my hypothetical scenario is that the people are different.â
Then yes, as I did say in the rather lengthy explanation I gave:
âThe route of disappearing 1000 people and replacing them with 1000 new people is one of the worse routes.â
If you insist that we must get rid of 1000 people and replace them with 1000 different people, then sure, (B) is worse than (C). So now I will remind myself what your objection regarding this was in an earlier comment.
Iâll try explaining again briefly. With this theory, donât think of the (B),(C) etc. as populations but rather as âdistributionsâ the status quo population could take. Thus, as I said:
â(B) is a hypothetical which may be achieved by any route. Whether the resulting people of (B) in the hypothetical are real or imaginary depends on which route you take.â
When a population is not the status quo, it is simply representing a population distribution that you can get to. Whichever population is not the status quo is considered in an abstract, hypothetical sense.
Now you wish to specifically consider the case where (with status quo (C)), everyone in (B) is specified to be different to the people in (C). I stress that this is not the usual sense in which comparisons are made in the theory; it is much more specific. Again, if one insists on this, then since we have to disappear 1000 people to get to (B), (B) is worse.
Your issue with this is that: âthe people in (B) would not want to move to (C), and vice versa, because that would mean they no longer exist. But your theory now gives a strong recommendation for one over the other anyway.â
Now I hope the explanation is fully clear. The distribution of (B) is preferable to people in (C) (i.e. with (C) as the status quo), but if you insist that the only routes to (C) involve getting rid of most of the population and replacing them with 1000 non-identical people, then this is not preferable. When (A) is the status quo, yes, we have a strong preference for (B) over (C) because we donât have to lose 1000 people, and I donât see the problem with considering people with equal welfare who (in the status quo of (A)) are imaginary or âeffectively realâ as identical. In line with a person-affecting outlook, I give more priority to real people than imaginary or effectively real peopleâI only respect the non-identity of real people. And just to add, viewing people as effectively real is not to say that they are really real (since they donât exist yet, even if they are mathematically expected to); itâs only been a way to balance the books for forced decisions.
The outcome is still, as far as I can see, consistent with transitivity and my already-avowed rejection of an objective ordering.