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 wi…
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...
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...