Part of the issue there is the shifting context for evaluating "better"-ness. Once someone exists, you have full-strength reasons to want to improve their well-being (or, equally, to want it to have been higher all along). But it's not as though you have any reason beforehand to prefer the first prospect over the second one. So it's n…
Part of the issue there is the shifting context for evaluating "better"-ness. Once someone exists, you have full-strength reasons to want to improve their well-being (or, equally, to want it to have been higher all along). But it's not as though you have any reason beforehand to prefer the first prospect over the second one. So it's not really any better (assuming that betterness entails reasons to prefer), once the context is held fixed.
But you think that causing someone's well-being to increase by 5 is more valuable than creating a person with well-being of five. Thus, disaggregating it would increase the value. Making someone with well-being of zero isn't bad, increasing their well-being of five is more valuable than just creating a person with well-being level of 5 from the start?
Value is time-relative, on this account, so those inferences don't go through. You have to think separately about what's preferable from the perspective of t1 (before creation) and what's preferable from the perspective of t2 (after creation). Increasing from welfare level zero to five makes the t2 perspective more salient, which is the perspective from which the individual has full moral weight, whereas the "create at level 5" option makes the prior time t1 more salient. But there is no time from which it is preferable (or more valuable) to separately create + increase well-being than to just create the individual at the higher welfare level to begin with.
I don't see how. At any given time, either the person's existence is settled, or it isn't. If it is, then the person has full weight, and the two options (that affect their interests equally) have equal value. If it isn't settled, then there are only impersonal reasons in play, and the two options (that result in equal impersonal value) again have equal value. In neither case do the two options look any different, when assessed from the same point in time.
It's true that, once the person exists at welfare 0, you (now) have more reason to boost their welfare to 5 than you (previously) had reason to create them at welfare level 5. But again, that's just an artifact of switching contexts. I don't think it's counterintuitive once we're clear that each point in time evaluates the two options equivalently.
"It's true that, once the person exists at welfare 0, you (now) have more reason to boost their welfare to 5 than you (previously) had reason to create them at welfare level 5. But again, that's just an artifact of switching contexts. I don't think it's counterintuitive once we're clear that each point in time evaluates the two options equivalently."
This seems really unintuitive. If you first create a person and then separately enable their good experiences later, that clearly isn't better than just creating them with the good experiences from the start.
Yes, and I just explained why it "isn't better". The claims about what reasons for action you have at the different times should not be confused with the claim that one of the actions results in a "better" outcome than the other.
Oh okay. But if we accept that your reasons come from the outcomes that you'd bring about -- which I'd think consequentialists would accept -- then that view would have to be rejected. Also, even if it's not better, wouldn't you have more reason to first create the person and then, after they exist, increase their well-being, rather than creating them with high well-being from the start?
No, you don't have reason to bring it about that you later act on strong reasons. Otherwise you'd have reason to put people into danger just so that you could rescue them from it!
You're right, that original objection of mine doesn't work.
But then wouldn't this have the implication that, if you make a person exist for one second, then your obligations to increase their well-being increase dramatically? Thus, if you could either increase the well-being of an existing person who has existed for one second and will only exist for one second absent you acting by 8 units or bring someone else into existence who will have 10 units of well-being, you should do the first? This seems implausible.
Seems plausible enough to me. In general, it seems we've somewhat more reason to benefit existing people than to create (and thereby benefit) new people. I don't know why it would matter how long the person has existed for. You can still imagine them looking at you, appalled, the complaint "You jerk!" just starting to form on their lips as they die in your arms because you figured you might as well replace them with someone else who would be marginally happier...
Part of the issue there is the shifting context for evaluating "better"-ness. Once someone exists, you have full-strength reasons to want to improve their well-being (or, equally, to want it to have been higher all along). But it's not as though you have any reason beforehand to prefer the first prospect over the second one. So it's not really any better (assuming that betterness entails reasons to prefer), once the context is held fixed.
But you think that causing someone's well-being to increase by 5 is more valuable than creating a person with well-being of five. Thus, disaggregating it would increase the value. Making someone with well-being of zero isn't bad, increasing their well-being of five is more valuable than just creating a person with well-being level of 5 from the start?
Value is time-relative, on this account, so those inferences don't go through. You have to think separately about what's preferable from the perspective of t1 (before creation) and what's preferable from the perspective of t2 (after creation). Increasing from welfare level zero to five makes the t2 perspective more salient, which is the perspective from which the individual has full moral weight, whereas the "create at level 5" option makes the prior time t1 more salient. But there is no time from which it is preferable (or more valuable) to separately create + increase well-being than to just create the individual at the higher welfare level to begin with.
So then if the second benefit well-being boost would occur after creation, wouldn’t the inference go through?
I don't see how. At any given time, either the person's existence is settled, or it isn't. If it is, then the person has full weight, and the two options (that affect their interests equally) have equal value. If it isn't settled, then there are only impersonal reasons in play, and the two options (that result in equal impersonal value) again have equal value. In neither case do the two options look any different, when assessed from the same point in time.
It's true that, once the person exists at welfare 0, you (now) have more reason to boost their welfare to 5 than you (previously) had reason to create them at welfare level 5. But again, that's just an artifact of switching contexts. I don't think it's counterintuitive once we're clear that each point in time evaluates the two options equivalently.
"It's true that, once the person exists at welfare 0, you (now) have more reason to boost their welfare to 5 than you (previously) had reason to create them at welfare level 5. But again, that's just an artifact of switching contexts. I don't think it's counterintuitive once we're clear that each point in time evaluates the two options equivalently."
This seems really unintuitive. If you first create a person and then separately enable their good experiences later, that clearly isn't better than just creating them with the good experiences from the start.
Yes, and I just explained why it "isn't better". The claims about what reasons for action you have at the different times should not be confused with the claim that one of the actions results in a "better" outcome than the other.
Oh okay. But if we accept that your reasons come from the outcomes that you'd bring about -- which I'd think consequentialists would accept -- then that view would have to be rejected. Also, even if it's not better, wouldn't you have more reason to first create the person and then, after they exist, increase their well-being, rather than creating them with high well-being from the start?
No, you don't have reason to bring it about that you later act on strong reasons. Otherwise you'd have reason to put people into danger just so that you could rescue them from it!
You're right, that original objection of mine doesn't work.
But then wouldn't this have the implication that, if you make a person exist for one second, then your obligations to increase their well-being increase dramatically? Thus, if you could either increase the well-being of an existing person who has existed for one second and will only exist for one second absent you acting by 8 units or bring someone else into existence who will have 10 units of well-being, you should do the first? This seems implausible.
Seems plausible enough to me. In general, it seems we've somewhat more reason to benefit existing people than to create (and thereby benefit) new people. I don't know why it would matter how long the person has existed for. You can still imagine them looking at you, appalled, the complaint "You jerk!" just starting to form on their lips as they die in your arms because you figured you might as well replace them with someone else who would be marginally happier...