Depends whether that same person would end up existing in the absence of the glass bottle. If so, they qualify as "antecedently actual" (i.e. existing independently of the choice under consideration): the bottle makes them worse off than they otherwise would have been. But if not -- if it's an "identity-affecting" act -- then yeah, tha…
Depends whether that same person would end up existing in the absence of the glass bottle. If so, they qualify as "antecedently actual" (i.e. existing independently of the choice under consideration): the bottle makes them worse off than they otherwise would have been. But if not -- if it's an "identity-affecting" act -- then yeah, that makes it somewhat less bad, because no-one has been counterfactually harmed, or made worse-off than they otherwise would have been.
Update: Actually, that might not be quite right. In 'Rethinking the Asymmetry', I suggest a principle *proscribing the predictably regrettable*, according to which we may discount possible people’s interests in existence, but not their interests in *non-existence*, since violating the latter would end up creating actual people whose interests at that point would speak with full force. If that's right, then we shouldn't think there's a difference in the moral force of suffering between antecedently actual vs future contingent people.
Okay, so then if you create someone and then make them step on a bottle, before disappearing, would that be less bad than creating a bottle for an existing person to step on? That seems unintuitive.
Depends whether that same person would end up existing in the absence of the glass bottle. If so, they qualify as "antecedently actual" (i.e. existing independently of the choice under consideration): the bottle makes them worse off than they otherwise would have been. But if not -- if it's an "identity-affecting" act -- then yeah, that makes it somewhat less bad, because no-one has been counterfactually harmed, or made worse-off than they otherwise would have been.
Update: Actually, that might not be quite right. In 'Rethinking the Asymmetry', I suggest a principle *proscribing the predictably regrettable*, according to which we may discount possible people’s interests in existence, but not their interests in *non-existence*, since violating the latter would end up creating actual people whose interests at that point would speak with full force. If that's right, then we shouldn't think there's a difference in the moral force of suffering between antecedently actual vs future contingent people.
Okay, so then if you create someone and then make them step on a bottle, before disappearing, would that be less bad than creating a bottle for an existing person to step on? That seems unintuitive.
See update to previous comment!