I was implicitly thinking of existence as timeless. To harm someone, they must (at some time) exist. I agree that they don't have to exist at the time of the harming event.
Here's an old post I wrote as an undergrad, exploring some related issues:
I was implicitly thinking of existence as timeless. To harm someone, they must (at some time) exist. I agree that they don't have to exist at the time of the harming event.
Here's an old post I wrote as an undergrad, exploring some related issues:
Got it. I mistakenly assumed you distinguished between existing at some point and existing now.
I will add one more comment, though, if you don’t mind responding. It seems possible to agree with both of the following things:
1. You can’t compare harms/benefits to a person between scenario where they exist and a scenario where they don’t exist.
2. Coming into existence can harm/benefit a person.
comparing to a counterfactual is not necessarily the only way to determine if something is good or bad.
If I can claim that my life is good without comparing to a scenario where I don’t exist, I can say coming into existence was good for me because it was a cause of something good.
This doesn’t require that comparisons aren’t valid, only that they aren’t the only valid way of deciding if something is good.
Yes, exactly. My suggestion (following McMahan) is that existence can be a *non-comparative* harm or benefit, depending on whether your life is bad or good for you. (This would be to accept Existence Incomparativism but to reject purely Comparative Analyses of Harm and Benefit.)
I was implicitly thinking of existence as timeless. To harm someone, they must (at some time) exist. I agree that they don't have to exist at the time of the harming event.
Here's an old post I wrote as an undergrad, exploring some related issues:
https://www.philosophyetc.net/2006/07/temporal-acrobatics-of-harm.html
Got it. I mistakenly assumed you distinguished between existing at some point and existing now.
I will add one more comment, though, if you don’t mind responding. It seems possible to agree with both of the following things:
1. You can’t compare harms/benefits to a person between scenario where they exist and a scenario where they don’t exist.
2. Coming into existence can harm/benefit a person.
comparing to a counterfactual is not necessarily the only way to determine if something is good or bad.
If I can claim that my life is good without comparing to a scenario where I don’t exist, I can say coming into existence was good for me because it was a cause of something good.
This doesn’t require that comparisons aren’t valid, only that they aren’t the only valid way of deciding if something is good.
Yes, exactly. My suggestion (following McMahan) is that existence can be a *non-comparative* harm or benefit, depending on whether your life is bad or good for you. (This would be to accept Existence Incomparativism but to reject purely Comparative Analyses of Harm and Benefit.)