But that removes the motivation. People agree with 1 because they think that something can't benefit someone who wouldn't have otherwise existed because comparisons between the existent and the nonexistent are nonsensical. The death case disproves that.
But that removes the motivation. People agree with 1 because they think that something can't benefit someone who wouldn't have otherwise existed because comparisons between the existent and the nonexistent are nonsensical. The death case disproves that.
I think you're correct, but I think the only reason people like Frick are talking about non-existence is because, at our current ability to resurrect the dead (i.e., no such ability whatsoever), we aren't forced to confront the difference between non-existence and never-having-existed.
I am pretty confident that most people attracted to Frick-type positions would happily modify their views to account for this, for basically the reason Richard points out below. In a sense, I think if resurrecting the dead were a real possibility, people would be more likely to regard death as like an extended coma or something like that.
Okay but surely it would still be bad for happy people to die if A-theory was true? I also think you could make a parallel version of the argument with time slices:
1) for something to be good it must benefit someone at some time.
2) for something to benefit someone at some time they must be better off at that time than they would have otherwise been.
3) revising someone doesn't make someone better off than they would have otherwise been at some time because they wouldn't have otherwise been at that time.
so reviving someone is good.
What's wrong with that argument is the same as what's wrong with the original argument for the asymmetry.
But that removes the motivation. People agree with 1 because they think that something can't benefit someone who wouldn't have otherwise existed because comparisons between the existent and the nonexistent are nonsensical. The death case disproves that.
I think you're correct, but I think the only reason people like Frick are talking about non-existence is because, at our current ability to resurrect the dead (i.e., no such ability whatsoever), we aren't forced to confront the difference between non-existence and never-having-existed.
I am pretty confident that most people attracted to Frick-type positions would happily modify their views to account for this, for basically the reason Richard points out below. In a sense, I think if resurrecting the dead were a real possibility, people would be more likely to regard death as like an extended coma or something like that.
Then that's a cost for the view if it requires having a weird metaphysics to accommodate the data that one should bring one back from the dead.
For eternalists about time, dead people exist, just at an earlier time. There's no metaphysical difficulty in referring to them (de re), for example.
Okay but surely it would still be bad for happy people to die if A-theory was true? I also think you could make a parallel version of the argument with time slices:
1) for something to be good it must benefit someone at some time.
2) for something to benefit someone at some time they must be better off at that time than they would have otherwise been.
3) revising someone doesn't make someone better off than they would have otherwise been at some time because they wouldn't have otherwise been at that time.
so reviving someone is good.
What's wrong with that argument is the same as what's wrong with the original argument for the asymmetry.