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It actually seems perfectly plausible to me that changing who exists (even in bad or morally mistaken ways) could change how we should subsequently feel about that decision. Liz Harman is very good on this point, in her "'I'll be Glad I Did It' Reasoning and the Significance of Future Desires": philpapers.org/rec/HARI…
It actually seems perfectly plausible to me that changing who exists (even in bad or morally mistaken ways) could change how we should subsequently feel about that decision. Liz Harman is very good on this point, in her "'I'll be Glad I Did It' Reasoning and the Significance of Future Desires": https://philpapers.org/rec/HARIBG-3
I'll read the paper, but that seems very odd. Imagine you read about some act that causes current suffering to create a current person with well-being. You're asked how to feel about that act. It seems strange to answer "wait, what year was that act taken? Has the kid been born yet?"
It's a tricky question precisely *when* we should get attached to actual people. It may be more plausible to track, not *time* (or whether the future person has come into existence yet), but just *whether the action has happened* (such that the future person's existence is now settled). I'm not sure.
But the basic phenomenon of *attachment* seems familiar enough, and not odd. Just consider a parent considering the counterfactual prospect of having had a slightly happier child in place of their actual child. In advance, they should of course prefer a happier child over a less happy one, all else equal. But at least once they know & love their actual child, it would seem messed up for them to wish that a slightly happier alternative person had existed instead.
So, if we are to accommodate the phenomenon of (warranted) attachment, we must be open to the possibility of shifting normative standards pre- vs post-attachment.