I read the article you posted a link to, but I still think maximizing average welfare is a good policy goal. To me it seems like maximizing average welfare is entirely what altruism is about. The way I think of it is that each person, when the person is created, has an equal chance of being any one person that has ever or will ever live, so we want such possibilities to be as good as possible, on average.
The first issue that the article describes is that if there were only one person enduring a lot of suffering, the world could be improved by adding a bunch more people also enduring a lot of suffering, but a little bit less. To me that seems correct. In that world, having a chance to live a life that involves a little bit less suffering would be an improvement. Also, oddly, those people would be exist in a sort of a backwards world where the objective is not to live as long as possible, but to live as short a life as possible.
The second issue that the article describes is that adding a bunch of lives with positive welfare, but less than the average, could be worse than adding only one life with a very negative amount of welfare. Here, again, this makes sense to me. It’s less of a problem to have a very small chance of living the one really bad life than a much larger chance of living a life that is worse than the average, but not as much worse.
But thanks for the reply. I didn’t realize this was so much in contention. It’s good to know.
Regardless, could you possibly tell me which utilitarian theory you ascribe to, and how it would or wouldn’t apply to my question regarding family planning charities? To me it still seems like avoiding that 7.6% chance of dying before the age of 5 years old is a really great advantage of family planning charities in sub-Saharan Africa.
I’m not sure I subscribe to any form of utilitarianism, and I’m not sure what my view in population ethics is. But I am confident that the mere fact that a life would be below average well-being does not make adding it to the world a bad thing.
I read the article you posted a link to, but I still think maximizing average welfare is a good policy goal. To me it seems like maximizing average welfare is entirely what altruism is about. The way I think of it is that each person, when the person is created, has an equal chance of being any one person that has ever or will ever live, so we want such possibilities to be as good as possible, on average.
The first issue that the article describes is that if there were only one person enduring a lot of suffering, the world could be improved by adding a bunch more people also enduring a lot of suffering, but a little bit less. To me that seems correct. In that world, having a chance to live a life that involves a little bit less suffering would be an improvement. Also, oddly, those people would be exist in a sort of a backwards world where the objective is not to live as long as possible, but to live as short a life as possible.
The second issue that the article describes is that adding a bunch of lives with positive welfare, but less than the average, could be worse than adding only one life with a very negative amount of welfare. Here, again, this makes sense to me. It’s less of a problem to have a very small chance of living the one really bad life than a much larger chance of living a life that is worse than the average, but not as much worse.
But thanks for the reply. I didn’t realize this was so much in contention. It’s good to know.
Regardless, could you possibly tell me which utilitarian theory you ascribe to, and how it would or wouldn’t apply to my question regarding family planning charities? To me it still seems like avoiding that 7.6% chance of dying before the age of 5 years old is a really great advantage of family planning charities in sub-Saharan Africa.
I’m not sure I subscribe to any form of utilitarianism, and I’m not sure what my view in population ethics is. But I am confident that the mere fact that a life would be below average well-being does not make adding it to the world a bad thing.
I see. And that IS relevant to my original question regarding family planning in settings with high child mortality.