Iâm not sure I really follow (though I admit Iâve only read the comment, not the post youâve linked to.) Is the argument something like we should only care about fulfilling preferences that already exist, and adding people to the world doesnât automatically do that, so thereâs no general reason to add happy people if it doesnât satisfy a preference of someone who is here already? Couldnât you show that adding suffering people isnât automatically bad by the same reasoning, since it doesnât necessarily violate an existing preference? (Also, on the word âobjectiveâ: you can definitely have a view of morality on which satisfying existing preference or doing what people value is all that matters, but it is mind-independently true that this is the correct morality, which makes it a realist view as academic philosophers classify things, and hence a view on which morality is objective in one sense of âobjectiveâ. Hence why I think âobjectiveâ should be tabooed.)
Is the argument something like we should only care about fulfilling preferences that already exist, and adding people to the world doesnât automatically do that, so thereâs no general reason to add happy people if it doesnât satisfy a preference of someone who is here already?
Pretty much, but my point is only that this is a perfectly defensible way to think about population ethics, not that I expect everyone to find it compelling over alternatives.
As I say in the longer post:
Just like the concept âathletic fitnessâ has several defensible interpretations (e.g., the difference between a 100m sprinter and a marathon runner), so (I argue) does âdoing the most moral/âaltruistic thing.â
I agree with what you write about âobjectiveâ â Iâm guilty of violating your advice.
(That said, I think thereâs a sense in which preference utilitarianism would be unsatisfying as a âmoral realistâ answer to all of ethics because it doesnât say anything about what preferences to adopt. Or, if it did say what preferences to adopt, then it would again be subject to my criticism â what if objective preference utilitarianism says I should think of my preferences in one particular way but that doesnât resonate with me?)
Couldnât you show that adding suffering people isnât automatically bad by the same reasoning, since it doesnât necessarily violate an existing preference?
I tried to address this in the last paragraph of my previous comment. It gets a bit complicated because Iâm relying on a distinction between âambitious moralityâ and âminimal moralityâ ( = âdonât be a jerkâ) which also only makes sense if thereâs no objective axiology.
I donât expect the following to be easily intelligible to people used to thinking within the moral realist framework, but for more context, I recommend the section âminimal morality vs. ambitious moralityâ here. This link explains why I think it makes sense to have a distinction between minimal morality and ambitious morality, instead of treating all of morality as the same thing. (âCare moralityâ vs. âcooperation moralityâ is a similar framing, which probably tells you more about what I mean here.) And my earlier comment (in particular, the last paragraph in my previous comment) already explained why I think minimal morality contains a population-ethical asymmetry.
Iâm not sure I really follow (though I admit Iâve only read the comment, not the post youâve linked to.) Is the argument something like we should only care about fulfilling preferences that already exist, and adding people to the world doesnât automatically do that, so thereâs no general reason to add happy people if it doesnât satisfy a preference of someone who is here already? Couldnât you show that adding suffering people isnât automatically bad by the same reasoning, since it doesnât necessarily violate an existing preference? (Also, on the word âobjectiveâ: you can definitely have a view of morality on which satisfying existing preference or doing what people value is all that matters, but it is mind-independently true that this is the correct morality, which makes it a realist view as academic philosophers classify things, and hence a view on which morality is objective in one sense of âobjectiveâ. Hence why I think âobjectiveâ should be tabooed.)
Pretty much, but my point is only that this is a perfectly defensible way to think about population ethics, not that I expect everyone to find it compelling over alternatives.
As I say in the longer post:
I agree with what you write about âobjectiveâ â Iâm guilty of violating your advice.
(That said, I think thereâs a sense in which preference utilitarianism would be unsatisfying as a âmoral realistâ answer to all of ethics because it doesnât say anything about what preferences to adopt. Or, if it did say what preferences to adopt, then it would again be subject to my criticism â what if objective preference utilitarianism says I should think of my preferences in one particular way but that doesnât resonate with me?)
I tried to address this in the last paragraph of my previous comment. It gets a bit complicated because Iâm relying on a distinction between âambitious moralityâ and âminimal moralityâ ( = âdonât be a jerkâ) which also only makes sense if thereâs no objective axiology.
I donât expect the following to be easily intelligible to people used to thinking within the moral realist framework, but for more context, I recommend the section âminimal morality vs. ambitious moralityâ here. This link explains why I think it makes sense to have a distinction between minimal morality and ambitious morality, instead of treating all of morality as the same thing. (âCare moralityâ vs. âcooperation moralityâ is a similar framing, which probably tells you more about what I mean here.) And my earlier comment (in particular, the last paragraph in my previous comment) already explained why I think minimal morality contains a population-ethical asymmetry.