That [welfare] fully boils down to whether the experience includes a preference to be dead (or to have not been born).
Possible failure case: There’s a hero living an awful life, choosing to remain alive in order to lessen the awfulness of a lot of other awful lives that can’t be ended. Everyone in this scenario prefers death, even the hero would prefer omnicide, but since that’s not possible, the hero chooses to live. The hero may say “I had no choice but to persist,” but this isn’t literally true.
Ah. No. The hero would prefer to be dead all things being equal, but that’s not possible, the hero wouldn’t prefer to be dead if it entailed that the hero’s work wouldn’t be done, and it would.
“would prefer to be replaced by a p-zombie” might be a better definition x]
Possible failure case: There’s a hero living an awful life, choosing to remain alive in order to lessen the awfulness of a lot of other awful lives that can’t be ended. Everyone in this scenario prefers death, even the hero would prefer omnicide, but since that’s not possible, the hero chooses to live. The hero may say “I had no choice but to persist,” but this isn’t literally true.
Ah. No. The hero would prefer to be dead all things being equal, but that’s not possible, the hero wouldn’t prefer to be dead if it entailed that the hero’s work wouldn’t be done, and it would.
“would prefer to be replaced by a p-zombie” might be a better definition x]