That you know of. But there may be some way of disentangling our confusions about this topic that leaves the anti-repugnant-conclusion intuition intact, and leaves mine intact too. I’m not really feeling the need to accept one wrong-seeming view just to avoid another one.
I like this reply by Non-Utilitarian Holden!
Self-identifying utilitarians seem to have prematurely restricted the option space in population ethics. The (moral realist) utilitarian approach to population ethics goes something like this. “Something must be intrinsically valuable (or at least disvaluable). That value dictates everyone’s choices if they’re rational. If people want to do what’s moral, it would be a grave mistake not to have strong and specific preferences about allocating every resource in our future lightcone.”
It seems like there are other ways to conceptualize population ethics. We have to sit back and ask what we’re even doing, what specific question population ethics is trying to answer.
Here are two alternative frameworks for population ethics that I both consider helpful:
Population ethics as a set of appeals or principles by which newly created beings can hold accountable their creators. Example principles include the following:
All else equal, it seems objectionable on other-regarding grounds to create minds that lament their existence.
All else equal, it seems objectionable to create minds and place them in situations where their interests are only somewhat fulfilled, if one could have provided them with better circumstances.
All else equal, it seems objectionable to create minds destined for constant misery (even if they have a strict preference for existence over non-existence)
“Unused Garden Analogy:” Population ethics as an analogy where a group of people finds themselves in front of a vast unused garden space (or the Great Plains, historically), deliberating their visions for using the space.
(Those two frameworks can complement one another. )
The first framework is very similar to what common sense says about the ethics of having children. For instance, parents are free to have children or not have them, but they have specific duties toward them when they do have them.
The second framework (the “Unused Garden Analogy”) gives rise to further distinctions:
Since I’m part of the group of existing people, what do I want to happen with the garden?
If someone self-identifies as wanting to do what’s “altruistic/good from an impartial perspective,” what’s the “most altruistic setup” for using the garden?
If other people have a variety of views about the garden, what’s my attitude toward the “compromise of everyone’s views on how to use the garden?”
Some kind of utilitarian perspective can play a role in the Unused Garden Analogy. For instance, someone may think that the “most altruistic setup” for how to use the garden has to be “utilitarianism, in spirit.” Note that it couldn’t be a moral realist version of utilitarianism because that would invalidate the entire analogy; it would declare war against all other perspectives. It would say that anyone who doesn’t pick exactly the right answer is failing to do what’s moral. If moral realism is right and a specific flavor of utilitarianism is the single correct moral theory, then how could anyone seriously propose using the garden for anything else but The One Correct Way To Use It? No, instead, people could have a garden preference that’s like subjectivist utilitarianism. They cast a vote on how to use the garden, and for garden-specific purposes, that vote is a flavor of utilitarianism. However, by voting, they aren’t expressing that everyone else’s votes should be ignored.
I like this reply by Non-Utilitarian Holden!
Self-identifying utilitarians seem to have prematurely restricted the option space in population ethics. The (moral realist) utilitarian approach to population ethics goes something like this. “Something must be intrinsically valuable (or at least disvaluable). That value dictates everyone’s choices if they’re rational. If people want to do what’s moral, it would be a grave mistake not to have strong and specific preferences about allocating every resource in our future lightcone.”
It seems like there are other ways to conceptualize population ethics. We have to sit back and ask what we’re even doing, what specific question population ethics is trying to answer.
Here are two alternative frameworks for population ethics that I both consider helpful:
Population ethics as a set of appeals or principles by which newly created beings can hold accountable their creators. Example principles include the following:
All else equal, it seems objectionable on other-regarding grounds to create minds that lament their existence.
All else equal, it seems objectionable to create minds and place them in situations where their interests are only somewhat fulfilled, if one could have provided them with better circumstances.
All else equal, it seems objectionable to create minds destined for constant misery (even if they have a strict preference for existence over non-existence)
“Unused Garden Analogy:” Population ethics as an analogy where a group of people finds themselves in front of a vast unused garden space (or the Great Plains, historically), deliberating their visions for using the space.
(Those two frameworks can complement one another. )
The first framework is very similar to what common sense says about the ethics of having children. For instance, parents are free to have children or not have them, but they have specific duties toward them when they do have them.
The second framework (the “Unused Garden Analogy”) gives rise to further distinctions:
Since I’m part of the group of existing people, what do I want to happen with the garden?
If someone self-identifies as wanting to do what’s “altruistic/good from an impartial perspective,” what’s the “most altruistic setup” for using the garden?
If other people have a variety of views about the garden, what’s my attitude toward the “compromise of everyone’s views on how to use the garden?”
Some kind of utilitarian perspective can play a role in the Unused Garden Analogy. For instance, someone may think that the “most altruistic setup” for how to use the garden has to be “utilitarianism, in spirit.” Note that it couldn’t be a moral realist version of utilitarianism because that would invalidate the entire analogy; it would declare war against all other perspectives. It would say that anyone who doesn’t pick exactly the right answer is failing to do what’s moral. If moral realism is right and a specific flavor of utilitarianism is the single correct moral theory, then how could anyone seriously propose using the garden for anything else but The One Correct Way To Use It? No, instead, people could have a garden preference that’s like subjectivist utilitarianism. They cast a vote on how to use the garden, and for garden-specific purposes, that vote is a flavor of utilitarianism. However, by voting, they aren’t expressing that everyone else’s votes should be ignored.