Under this view, is another (pro tanto) reason why it’s bad to kill (not-entirely-satisfied) people that their satisfaction/fulfillment is worth preserving (i.e. is good in a way that outweighs associated frustration)?
I would answer “No.”
If we answer “No,” on the grounds that fulfillment can’t outweigh frustration, this would seem to imply that one should kill people, whenever their being killed would frustrate them less than their continued living. Problematically, that seems like it would probably apply to many people, including many pretty happy people.
The preference against being killed is as strong as the happy person wants it to be. If they have a strong preference against being killed then the preference frustration from being killed would be lot worse than the preference frustration from an unhappy decade or two – it depends how the person herself would want to make these choices.
(The post I linked to primarily focuses on cases where people have well-specified preferences/goals. Many people will have under-defined preferences and preference utilitarians would also want to have a way to deal with these cases. One way to deal with under-defined preferences could be “fill in the gaps with what’s good on our experience-focused account of what matters.”)
I would answer “No.”
The preference against being killed is as strong as the happy person wants it to be. If they have a strong preference against being killed then the preference frustration from being killed would be lot worse than the preference frustration from an unhappy decade or two – it depends how the person herself would want to make these choices.
I haven’t worked this out as a formal theory but here are some thoughts on how I’d think about “preferences.”
(The post I linked to primarily focuses on cases where people have well-specified preferences/goals. Many people will have under-defined preferences and preference utilitarians would also want to have a way to deal with these cases. One way to deal with under-defined preferences could be “fill in the gaps with what’s good on our experience-focused account of what matters.”)