I loved this post, but perhaps I also took it that it sort of provided some form of 'Modus Tollens' (or some amount of disconfirmation) which should at least weaken our confidence on 'Existence Incomparativism'.
From what you now say, am I right to suppose that for you the "Comparative Analysis of Harm and Benefit" is the weakest link or weakest component here?
I loved this post, but perhaps I also took it that it sort of provided some form of 'Modus Tollens' (or some amount of disconfirmation) which should at least weaken our confidence on 'Existence Incomparativism'.
From what you now say, am I right to suppose that for you the "Comparative Analysis of Harm and Benefit" is the weakest link or weakest component here?
Maybe! But I'd also hesitate to call that one "obviously false": it's perfectly fine to hold on to *if* one is willing to give up Existence Incomparativism and say that Misery is worse-off than if she didn't exist at all.
So really all that I think is "obvious" is that the conjunction of the two claims must be false, but people could reasonably go either way on which one they give up. (I'm actually tempted to go further and suggest that it's probably just a verbal disagreement in either case: it's not really clear what someone *means* by "worse off" in these contexts, and the two routes I've suggested are different ways of talking in a way that still lets us make the crucial normative claims about Misery's existence. Although they end up using different words in either case, I'm not sure that there's any real difference in the underlying *claims* that one ends up expressing as a result of going one way or the other.)
I loved this post, but perhaps I also took it that it sort of provided some form of 'Modus Tollens' (or some amount of disconfirmation) which should at least weaken our confidence on 'Existence Incomparativism'.
From what you now say, am I right to suppose that for you the "Comparative Analysis of Harm and Benefit" is the weakest link or weakest component here?
Maybe! But I'd also hesitate to call that one "obviously false": it's perfectly fine to hold on to *if* one is willing to give up Existence Incomparativism and say that Misery is worse-off than if she didn't exist at all.
So really all that I think is "obvious" is that the conjunction of the two claims must be false, but people could reasonably go either way on which one they give up. (I'm actually tempted to go further and suggest that it's probably just a verbal disagreement in either case: it's not really clear what someone *means* by "worse off" in these contexts, and the two routes I've suggested are different ways of talking in a way that still lets us make the crucial normative claims about Misery's existence. Although they end up using different words in either case, I'm not sure that there's any real difference in the underlying *claims* that one ends up expressing as a result of going one way or the other.)