tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post2720744249630193246..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Non-identity, Variability and Actualist PartialityRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-20350947425831609152013-04-07T19:51:02.299-04:002013-04-07T19:51:02.299-04:00[continued...]
One last point. Richard says that...[continued...]<br /><br />One last point. Richard says that he doesn't see what the "theoretical rationale" behind Variabilism could be. Others have said similar things to me, as in (A) yes it preserves the Asymmetry and shows that the Asymmetry can be asserted consistently and without loss of cogency, but it does so on an ad hoc basis, and/or (B) yes . . . , but if losses have moral significance at worlds where their subjects exist, why don't gains? But I don't think these are strong points. Why shouldn't we distinguish between the lesser wellbeing level (the "loss") that p incurs at a world w where p never exists at all, relative to a world w' where p has an existence well worth having, and the loss that p incurs at a world w where p exists and has an existence that p would be just as well off never having at all, relative to a world w' where p has an existence well worth having? In one case you have a loss that has no at-that-world-existing subject; in the other you have a loss that has an at-that-world-existing subject, a flesh and blood creature who suffers. Why shouldn't we say that -- while p arguably incurs a loss in some sense or another in both scenarios -- one loss has no moral significance at all while the other has full moral significance? Then, on the benefit side: why shouldn't we say that the benefit accorded by the choice that avoids a loss on behalf of no at-that-world-existing subject has no moral significance at all, while the benefit accorded by the choice that avoids a loss on behalf of an at-that-world-existing subject, a flesh and blood creature who suffers, has full moral significance? <br /><br />So I don't think it's plausible that the distinction Variabilism makes between the two losses (or equally the two gains) is arbitrary or ad hoc.<br /><br />[- Melinda Roberts]Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-17188394505468189362013-04-07T19:50:29.403-04:002013-04-07T19:50:29.403-04:00[Melinda Roberts writes:]
While I find the Asymme...[Melinda Roberts writes:]<br /><br />While I find the Asymmetry highly intuitive, my argument involving the principle "Variabilism" isn't an argument for the Asymmetry. It's, rather, a reply to an objection against the Asymmetry that many consider definitive, according to which, on pain of inconsistency or conceptual incoherence, we cannot take both the position that it's wrong to bring the anguished child into existence and the position that it's permissible not to bring the happy child into existence. What Variabilism establishes is that -- if we want to take both such positions -- we can do so *without* contradicting ourselves or becoming enmeshed in incoherence.<br /><br />A couple of responses to Richard's note. <br /><br />Richard suggests the initially plausible claim that we must find a way to give the suffering of people who do or will exist however we make the choice under scrutiny more weight, in some sense, than the suffering of people whose existence depends on that same choice. My own view is that this tactic is doomed to failure. A range of problem cases shows, I think, that we are going to have to consider all persons, actual or merely possible, on par. Maybe not all *losses* are on par (more on that in a minute) but all *people* are -- and so by the way is all of the felt suffering they do, or might, endure. <br /><br />Richard himself investigates the idea that "we have only impersonal reasons to prevent the suffering of the non-existent (by ensuring that they don't exist), but both personal and impersonal reasons to relieve the suffering of actual people.") But in the end he decides that that can't be right. <br /><br />Even so, however, he still wants to maintain a distinction between dependently and independently existing people -- provided that they are happy. (In one case, we take into account only impersonal value; in the other, we are to add personal and impersonal values.) The upshot, as he notes, is that the weight of our reasons to bring the happy child into existence is going to vary, depending on what we in fact do. But that seems implausible. Wlodek Rabinowicz's axiom of normative invariance is implicated; the weight of my reasons to perform some future act shouldn't be a function of whether I in fact perform that act. I can't make an otherwise permissible act wrong, simply by doing it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com