On your view, is it good for someone to prevent them from dying? Doesn’t the same argument apply—if the person doesn’t exist (is dead) there’s no object to attach any predicates to.
No, I also don’t think it makes sense to say death is good or bad for people. Hence it’s not true to say you benefit someone by keeping them alive. Given most people do want to say there’s something good about keeping people alive, it makes sense to adopt an impersonal locution.
I’m not making an argument about what the correct account of ethics is here, I’m just making a point about the correct use of language. Will’s definition can’t be capturing what he means and is thus misleading, so ‘do the most good’ is better than ‘benefit others’.
In line with the above, one could stick with the EA definition and when asked to gloss it, say that different people understand benefitting others in different ways, some in such a way that creating new people etc counts as a benefit, others not. One downside of that is that it excludes the logically possible option of [your account of benefitting others; morality isn’t all about benefitting others sometimes it’s about impersonal good]
On your account, as you say, bringing people into a life of suffering doesn’t harm them and preventing someone from dying doesn’t benefit them. So, you could also have said “lots of EA activities are devoted to preventing people from dying and preventing lives of suffering, but neither activity benefits anyone, so the definition is wrong”. This is a harder sell, and it seems like you’re just criticising the definition of EA on the basis of a weird account of the meaning of ‘benefitting others’.
I would guess that the vast majorty of people think that preventing a future life of suffering and saving lives both benefit somebody. If so, the vast majority of people would be committed to something which denies your criticism of the definition of EA.
weird account of the meaning of ‘benefitting others’.
The account might be uncommon in ordinarly langauge, but most philosophers accept creating lives doesn’t benefit the created person. I’m at least being consistent and I don’t think that consistency is objectionable. Calling it the view weird is unhelpful.
But suppose people typically think it’s odd to claim you’re benefiting someone by creating them. Then the stated definition of what’s EAs about will be at least somewhat misleading to them when you explain EA in greater detail. Consistent with other things I’ve written on this forum, I think EA should take avoiding being misleading very seriously.
I’m not claiming this is a massive point, it just stuck out to me.
I suppose there are two ways of securing neutrality—letting people pick their own meaning of ‘doing good’, and letting people pick their own meaning of ‘benefiting others’
Does it harm someone to bring them into existence with a life of intense suffering?
No. It might be impersonally bad though.
On your view, is it good for someone to prevent them from dying? Doesn’t the same argument apply—if the person doesn’t exist (is dead) there’s no object to attach any predicates to.
No, I also don’t think it makes sense to say death is good or bad for people. Hence it’s not true to say you benefit someone by keeping them alive. Given most people do want to say there’s something good about keeping people alive, it makes sense to adopt an impersonal locution.
I’m not making an argument about what the correct account of ethics is here, I’m just making a point about the correct use of language. Will’s definition can’t be capturing what he means and is thus misleading, so ‘do the most good’ is better than ‘benefit others’.
In line with the above, one could stick with the EA definition and when asked to gloss it, say that different people understand benefitting others in different ways, some in such a way that creating new people etc counts as a benefit, others not. One downside of that is that it excludes the logically possible option of [your account of benefitting others; morality isn’t all about benefitting others sometimes it’s about impersonal good]
On your account, as you say, bringing people into a life of suffering doesn’t harm them and preventing someone from dying doesn’t benefit them. So, you could also have said “lots of EA activities are devoted to preventing people from dying and preventing lives of suffering, but neither activity benefits anyone, so the definition is wrong”. This is a harder sell, and it seems like you’re just criticising the definition of EA on the basis of a weird account of the meaning of ‘benefitting others’.
I would guess that the vast majorty of people think that preventing a future life of suffering and saving lives both benefit somebody. If so, the vast majority of people would be committed to something which denies your criticism of the definition of EA.
The account might be uncommon in ordinarly langauge, but most philosophers accept creating lives doesn’t benefit the created person. I’m at least being consistent and I don’t think that consistency is objectionable. Calling it the view weird is unhelpful.
But suppose people typically think it’s odd to claim you’re benefiting someone by creating them. Then the stated definition of what’s EAs about will be at least somewhat misleading to them when you explain EA in greater detail. Consistent with other things I’ve written on this forum, I think EA should take avoiding being misleading very seriously.
I’m not claiming this is a massive point, it just stuck out to me.
Agreed, weirdness accusation retracted.
I suppose there are two ways of securing neutrality—letting people pick their own meaning of ‘doing good’, and letting people pick their own meaning of ‘benefiting others’