I should clarify that I’m not committed to C being “low”; but I do think it should be somewhere between 0 and 1 (rather than at either extreme). I don’t have any objection to C>0.5, for example, though I expect many people would find it more intuitive to place it somewhat lower. I’d probably be most comfortable somewhere around 0.5 myself, but I have very wide uncertainty on this, and could probably easily be swayed anywhere in the range from 0.2 − 0.8 or so. It seems a really hard question!
To me, it seems most intuitive that one should have little to no preference between Case 1 and Case 2. The outcomes for both the woman and the child are (by construction) identical.
My thought is that what we (should) care about may vary between the cases, and change over time (as new people come into existence). Roughly, the intuition is that we should care especially about individuals who do or will exist (independently of our present actions). So once a child exists (or will exist), we may have just as much reason to be thankful for their creation as we do for their life being saved; so I agree the two options don’t differ in retrospect. But in prospect, we have (somewhat) less reason to bring a new person into existence than to save an already-existing person. And I take the “in prospect” perspective to be the one that’s more decision-relevant.
Interesting! Thanks for this.
I should clarify that I’m not committed to C being “low”; but I do think it should be somewhere between 0 and 1 (rather than at either extreme). I don’t have any objection to C>0.5, for example, though I expect many people would find it more intuitive to place it somewhat lower. I’d probably be most comfortable somewhere around 0.5 myself, but I have very wide uncertainty on this, and could probably easily be swayed anywhere in the range from 0.2 − 0.8 or so. It seems a really hard question!
My thought is that what we (should) care about may vary between the cases, and change over time (as new people come into existence). Roughly, the intuition is that we should care especially about individuals who do or will exist (independently of our present actions). So once a child exists (or will exist), we may have just as much reason to be thankful for their creation as we do for their life being saved; so I agree the two options don’t differ in retrospect. But in prospect, we have (somewhat) less reason to bring a new person into existence than to save an already-existing person. And I take the “in prospect” perspective to be the one that’s more decision-relevant.
Thanks for the clarification, and for your explanation of your thought process!