I think the issue is that, if we stipulate that we have both person-directed and undirected moral reasons, there is still a danger of collapsing the distinction if one allows unlimited creation of new person-directed reasons. In your example we begin by having person-directed and undirected reasons to help Amy, and purely undirected reas…
I think the issue is that, if we stipulate that we have both person-directed and undirected moral reasons, there is still a danger of collapsing the distinction if one allows unlimited creation of new person-directed reasons. In your example we begin by having person-directed and undirected reasons to help Amy, and purely undirected reasons to create Bobby. However, after Bobby is created this creates new person-directed reasons to help him, which puts helping him on par with helping Amy.
It seems to me that one way out of this dilemma is to penalize the creation of new person-directed reasons in some way, so that the undirected reasons to create someone need to be especially great in order to overcome the penalty. This would probably function a lot like critical-level or critical-range utilitarianism. This might threaten to imply the Sadistic Conclusion in the case of critical-level utilitarianism, but not in critical-range utilitarianism. This seems analogous in some ways to the way people treat creation of new personal goals, we are often reluctant to start new major life projects or serious relationships unless we are reasonably certain they will turn out well.
I had not thought of your precommitment idea before. It also seems a worthwhile idea to explore. I am not sure that backwards induction motivating us to *not* create Bobby seems perverse if you try to translate it into a realistic scenario instead of imagining it in the abstract. It sounds like normal family planning to me. Many parents choose to have fewer children than they otherwise would because they want to devote their resources to their existing children. Imagine you were to point out to them that they could have an extra child if they practiced extreme favoritism by committing to devoting far fewer resources to the new child and directing the bulk of their resources towards the older kids. Their new child's life would be much worse than that of their older siblings, but still worth living. I think most parents would respond to such a suggestion with horror. Maybe they have already precomitted to not create Bobby.
I think the issue is that, if we stipulate that we have both person-directed and undirected moral reasons, there is still a danger of collapsing the distinction if one allows unlimited creation of new person-directed reasons. In your example we begin by having person-directed and undirected reasons to help Amy, and purely undirected reasons to create Bobby. However, after Bobby is created this creates new person-directed reasons to help him, which puts helping him on par with helping Amy.
It seems to me that one way out of this dilemma is to penalize the creation of new person-directed reasons in some way, so that the undirected reasons to create someone need to be especially great in order to overcome the penalty. This would probably function a lot like critical-level or critical-range utilitarianism. This might threaten to imply the Sadistic Conclusion in the case of critical-level utilitarianism, but not in critical-range utilitarianism. This seems analogous in some ways to the way people treat creation of new personal goals, we are often reluctant to start new major life projects or serious relationships unless we are reasonably certain they will turn out well.
I had not thought of your precommitment idea before. It also seems a worthwhile idea to explore. I am not sure that backwards induction motivating us to *not* create Bobby seems perverse if you try to translate it into a realistic scenario instead of imagining it in the abstract. It sounds like normal family planning to me. Many parents choose to have fewer children than they otherwise would because they want to devote their resources to their existing children. Imagine you were to point out to them that they could have an extra child if they practiced extreme favoritism by committing to devoting far fewer resources to the new child and directing the bulk of their resources towards the older kids. Their new child's life would be much worse than that of their older siblings, but still worth living. I think most parents would respond to such a suggestion with horror. Maybe they have already precomitted to not create Bobby.