I had a somewhat related random stream of thoughts the other day regarding the possibility of bringing past people back to life to allow them to live the life they would like.
While I’m fairly convinced of hedonistic utilitarianism, I found the idea of “righing past wrongs” very appealing. For example allowing a person that died prematurely to live out the fulfilled life that this person would wish for themself, that would feel very morally good to me.
That idea made me wonder if it makes sense to distinguish between persons who were born, and persons that could have existed but didn’t, as it seemed somewhat arbitrary to distinguish based on random fluctuations that led to the existence of one kind of person over the other. So at the end of the stream of thought I thought “Might as well spend some infinitely small fraction of our cosmic endowment on instantiating all possible kinds of beings and allow them to live the life they most desire.” :D
I had a somewhat related random stream of thoughts the other day regarding the possibility of bringing past people back to life to allow them to live the life they would like.
While I’m fairly convinced of hedonistic utilitarianism, I found the idea of “righing past wrongs” very appealing. For example allowing a person that died prematurely to live out the fulfilled life that this person would wish for themself, that would feel very morally good to me.
That idea made me wonder if it makes sense to distinguish between persons who were born, and persons that could have existed but didn’t, as it seemed somewhat arbitrary to distinguish based on random fluctuations that led to the existence of one kind of person over the other. So at the end of the stream of thought I thought “Might as well spend some infinitely small fraction of our cosmic endowment on instantiating all possible kinds of beings and allow them to live the life they most desire.” :D