I’m probably a necessitiarian, and many (most?) people implicitly hold person-affecting views. However, that’s besides the point. I’m neither defending nor evaluating person-affecting views, or indeed any positions in population axiology. As I mentioned, and is widely accepted by philosophers, all the views in population ethics have weird outcomes.
FWIW, and this is unrelated to anything said above, nothing about person-affecting views need rely on person identity. The entity of concern can just be something that is able to feel happiness or unhappiness. This is typically the same line total utilitarians take. What person-affectors and totalism disagree about is whether (for one reason on another) creating new entities is good.
In fact, all the problems you’ve raised for person-affecting views also arise for totalists. To see this, let’s imagine a scenario where a mad scientist is creating a brain inside a body, where the body is being shocked with electricity. Suppose he grows it to a certain size, takes bits out, shrinks it, grows it again, etc. Now the totalist needs to take a stance on how much harm the scientist is doing and draw a line somewhere. The totalist and the person-affector can draw the line in the same place, wherever that is.
Whatever puzzles qualia poses for person-affecting views also apply to totalism (at least, the part of morality concerned with subjective experience).
I’m probably a necessitiarian, and many (most?) people implicitly hold person-affecting views. However, that’s besides the point. I’m neither defending nor evaluating person-affecting views, or indeed any positions in population axiology. As I mentioned, and is widely accepted by philosophers, all the views in population ethics have weird outcomes.
FWIW, and this is unrelated to anything said above, nothing about person-affecting views need rely on person identity. The entity of concern can just be something that is able to feel happiness or unhappiness. This is typically the same line total utilitarians take. What person-affectors and totalism disagree about is whether (for one reason on another) creating new entities is good.
In fact, all the problems you’ve raised for person-affecting views also arise for totalists. To see this, let’s imagine a scenario where a mad scientist is creating a brain inside a body, where the body is being shocked with electricity. Suppose he grows it to a certain size, takes bits out, shrinks it, grows it again, etc. Now the totalist needs to take a stance on how much harm the scientist is doing and draw a line somewhere. The totalist and the person-affector can draw the line in the same place, wherever that is.
Whatever puzzles qualia poses for person-affecting views also apply to totalism (at least, the part of morality concerned with subjective experience).