I'll be just a bit nitpicky here — not because I think you haven't considered these details, but just to clarify my own position — and note that rejecting annihilation indifference requires more than just accepting the possibility of positive value:
(1) It requires accepting that positive value, in appropriate forms and sufficient quantit…
I'll be just a bit nitpicky here — not because I think you haven't considered these details, but just to clarify my own position — and note that rejecting annihilation indifference requires more than just accepting the possibility of positive value:
(1) It requires accepting that positive value, in appropriate forms and sufficient quantities, can offset the continuing presence of whatever negative value(s) we might be able to eliminate through the hypothetical annihilation. (So for example, although I don't think lexical negative utilitarianism offers a good way of thinking about the relationship between positive and negative aspects of individual welfare, I don't believe an "extremely weak" set of intuitions/assumptions is sufficient to reject it.)
(2) It requires some account of the relationship between positive value and sentience or consciousness. Stipulating that "positive value is possible" is consistent with the claim that there is some special positive value in barrenness, so that the barren rock is in fact the ideal state of the universe. We need additional intuitions or assumptions to explain how and why conscious or sentient life has more value than the barren rock. There are many possible arguments to support the latter position, but I don't think the premises of any of them can be called "extremely weak."
I'll be just a bit nitpicky here — not because I think you haven't considered these details, but just to clarify my own position — and note that rejecting annihilation indifference requires more than just accepting the possibility of positive value:
(1) It requires accepting that positive value, in appropriate forms and sufficient quantities, can offset the continuing presence of whatever negative value(s) we might be able to eliminate through the hypothetical annihilation. (So for example, although I don't think lexical negative utilitarianism offers a good way of thinking about the relationship between positive and negative aspects of individual welfare, I don't believe an "extremely weak" set of intuitions/assumptions is sufficient to reject it.)
(2) It requires some account of the relationship between positive value and sentience or consciousness. Stipulating that "positive value is possible" is consistent with the claim that there is some special positive value in barrenness, so that the barren rock is in fact the ideal state of the universe. We need additional intuitions or assumptions to explain how and why conscious or sentient life has more value than the barren rock. There are many possible arguments to support the latter position, but I don't think the premises of any of them can be called "extremely weak."