On the value of coming into existence

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 5, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 361-384

  Holtug, Nils ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN   (Denmark)

Author keywords

Betterness relation; Existence; Identifiability; Metaphysics; Value

Indexed keywords

EID: 34548542622     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1013957425591     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. See D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 490.
2. See T. Nagel, Moral Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 7.
3. For instance, assuming the Value of Existence View, we can deal with the so-called "non-identity problem" in person-affecting terms (for discussion of this problem, see Parflt, Reasons and Persons, pp. 31-355). Compare outcome A, in which one group of people exist and outcome B, in which an entirely different group of people exist. Assume that there are equally many people in A and B, that there is perfect equality in each of A and B, and that the people in A are better off than those in B. Clearly, everything else being equal, it would be worse if B came about than if A came about. Assuming the Value of Existence View, we can explain why this is so in person-affecting terms. For the people that will exist if A comes about will benefit more from coming into existence than the people that will exist if B comes about.
4. For discussion of this objection to egalitarianism, see D. Parfit, "Equality and Priority," in A. Mason (ed.), Ideals of Equality (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998);
5. L. S. Temkin, Inequality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), Chapter 9;
6. N. Holtug, "Egalitarianism and the Levelling Down Objection," Analysis 58(2) (1998);
7. N. Holtug, "Good for Whom?" Theoria (forthcoming).
8. It may be objected that if the Value of Existence View places the concern for possible people within the scope of person-affecting morality, this latter view, in effect, becomes an impersonal view. Consider, for instance, total person-affecting act-utilitarianism, according to which an act is right if and only if it brings about an outcome with at least as large a total sum of benefits to individuals as any other available act. If the value of coming into existence counts as a benefit to an individual, this view will generate judgements exactly similar to those generated by total impersonal act-utilitarianism, according to which an act is right if and only if it brings about an outcome with at least as large a total sum of benefits as any other available act (simply because all benefits will be benefits to individuals). Nevertheless, even if these two views coincide in this manner, our reason for accepting the impersonal version may be that it coincides with the person-affecting version. That is, we may believe that what matters is benefits to individuals and that since all benefits are benefits to individuals, the impersonal version captures our view. In this sense, then, our view may still have a person-affecting form.
9. On this distinction, see W. Rabinowicz and J. Österberg, "Value Based on Preferences: On Two Interpretations of Preference Utilitarianism, " Economics and Philosophy 12 (1996), pp. 1-27.
10. This preference is global in the sense that it has an entire life as one of its objects.
11. Again, the assessment may be based on either global or local preferences. If local preferences are employed, the value of a state for Jeremy will be the sum of preferencesatisfactions contained in it. Furthermore, perhaps the relevant preferences must satisfy certain conditions, e.g., perhaps they must be self-regarding and rational.
12. See M. D. Bayles, "Harm to the Unconceived," Philosophy and Public Affairs 5(3) (1975-1976), pp. 299-300.
13. For a similar point, see J. McKie, "Thinking about Possible People: A Comment on Tooley and Rachels," Bioethics 15(2) (2001), pp. 146-156.
14. For a critical discussion of the identiflability objection, see also R. M. Hare, "When Does Potentiality Count? A Comment on Lockwood," Bioethics 2(3) (1988), pp. 219-221;
15. and I. Persson, "Person-Affecting Principles and Beyond," in N. Fotion and J. C. Heller (eds.), Contingent Future Persons (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997), p. 48.
16. See Bayles, "Harm to the Unconceived," pp. 299-300.
17. Or, if we do not believe in transworld identity, surely the person who grows up in Brazil is a counterpart of Tony Blair.
18. See also I. Persson, "Genetic Therapy, Identity and Person-Regarding Reasons," Bioethics 9(1) (1995), pp. 17-25.
19. To ensure that only one thing satisfies the description, "their first child" or "their next child" can be used.
20. See Parflt, Reasons and Persons, p. 489.
21. See J. Broome, "Goodness is Reducible to Betterness: The Evil of Death is the Value of Life," in P. Koslowski and Y. Shionoya (eds.), The Good and the Economical (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1993), p. 77.
22. See D. Heyd, Genethics: Moral Issues in the Creation of People (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 122. See also pp. 30-31.
23. A similar definition is sometimes proposed for the preference relation, see L. J. Savage, The Foundations of Statistics (New York: Dover Publications, 1992), p. 19.
24. It may be suggested that, besides positive properties, individuals can have negative properties (for instance, the property of not having black hair). I, myself, do not find this a plausible suggestion [for various arguments for rejecting negative properties, see D. M. Armstrong, A Theory of Universals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 23-29]. But in any case, this does not matter for present purposes. All we need to agree on here is that non-existing individuals do not have positive properties.
25. Thus, it is common for modal actualists (i.e., proponents of the view that everything that exists actually exists) to distinguish between existence and obtaining. A merely possible entity is one that exists but does not obtain (is not instantiated). See R. C. Stalnaker, "Possible Worlds," and A. Plantinga, "Actualism and Possible Worlds," both in M. J. Loux (ed.), The Possible and the Actual (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979).
26. Wlodek Rabinowicz has suggested this account of the relevant relation (personal communication). With respect to ontological modesty, it is located between two alternative accounts of the relation. On the more modest account, statements about possible (but non-actual) states have actual states as their truthmakers - i.e., what renders them true, when true, is the way things actually are (e.g. D. M. Armstrong, A World of States of Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), chapter 10). The relevant relation can then be claimed to obtain between the state of affairs, Jeremy exists, Jeremy, and (appropriate) states of affairs serving as truthmakers for claims about Jeremy's non-existence. This account is ontologically less extravagant in the sense that it does not claim the existence of non-obtaining states of affairs. More extravagant than both this account and that offered in the main text is one according to which the relevant relation obtains between Jeremy and the state of affairs, Jeremy exists, in one world, and the state of affairs, Jeremy does not exist, in another world. This account relies on an extreme modal realism
27. for discussion and defence of such a realism, see D. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
28. It may be suggested that even a merely possible person can be an object in the truth-making relation, namely in so far as such a person (in an appropriate abstract form) may exist even if he is not instantiated. However, even if we were to grant this, it would hardly help the proponent of the Metaphysical Argument. This is because P could then be true even if Jeremy were a merely possible person, which is in accordance with (4).
29. For a somewhat similar definition of "extrinsically bad," see R Feldman, Confrontations with the Reaper (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 138, and for the suggestion that something like my (b)-clause needs to be added to Feldman's definition
30. see Persson, "Person-affecting Principles and Beyond," p. 55.
31. See Feldman, Confrontations with the Reaper, p. 139.
32. Elsewhere, I have denied that it can harm (or benefit) a person not to come into existence; see N. Holtug, "In Defense of the Slogan," in W. Rabinowicz (ed.), Preference and Value. Preferentialism in Ethics, Studies in Philosophy (Lund: Department of Philosophy, Lund Univesity, 1996), pp. 75-84
33. and N. Holtug, "Utility, Priority and Possible People," Utilitas 11(1) (1999), pp. 22-25.1 now believe that my earlier argument was unsatisfactory.
34. See also R. M. Hare, "Abortion and the Golden Rule," Philosophy and Public Affairs 4 (1975), p. 221, and Persson, "Person-Affecting Principles and Beyond," p. 47.
35. According to this principle, if Fa, then there exists an x such that Fx.
36. See B. Steinbock, Life Before Birth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 71.
37. See J. Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 81-82.
38. See Steinbock, Life Before Birth, pp. 71-72.
39. There is, nevertheless, the following difference between actual and merely possible people: while both can be extrinsically benefited and harmed, intrinsic benefits and harms accrue only to actual people.
40. For an account of the difference between actualism regarding preferences and regarding persons, see K. Bykvist, Changing Preferences. A Study in Preferentialism, dissertation (Uppsala University, 1998), Chapter 5. Bykvist asks which preferences matter morally (not prudentially).
41. Steinbock apparently misses this point when accepting "the Asymmetry," according to which ceteris paribus we have moral reason not to bring into existence people who will have lives that are worth not living but no moral reason to bring into existence people who will have lives that are worth living [Jan Narveson has famously defended this view; see J. Narveson, "Utilitarianism and New Generations," Mind 76 (1967), pp. 69-71.
42. The term "the Asymmetry" is due to Jeff McMahan, see his "Problems of Population Policy," Ethics 92(1981), p. 100.
43. Steinbock's reason for accepting the Asymmetry is that "we should be concerned with the happiness or unhappiness of beings who have interests" (Steinbock, Life Before Birth, p. 74). Clearly, she must mean here that we should be concerned with actual beings, but it is not entirely clear whether her focus is on actual people or actual preferences
44. [she quotes Mary Anne Warren, who also defends the Asymmetry on the basis of actualism, but in Warren's discussion it is not entirely clear where the focus is either: M. A. Warren, "Do Potential People Have Moral Rights?," in R. I. Sikora and B. Barry (eds.), Obligations to Future Generations (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), p. 25]. But whether Steinbock's focus is on actual people or on actual preferences, she provides no support for the Asymmetry. If we bring a miserable child into existence, this child will be actual and so will its preferences. Furthermore, its preferences will be largely frustrated, we may assume, since it is a miserable child. Therefore, causing this child to exist is wrong, according to Steinbock. On the other hand, if we fail to bring a happy child into existence, it will not be actual. It will therefore not have any actual preferences; a fortiori it will not have any frustrated actual preferences. So according to Steinbock, failing to bring this child into existence is not wrong (Life Before Birth, p. 74). Does this not suffice to establish the relevant asymmetry? It does not. Just as the miserable child will have her actual preferences (largely) frustrated, the happy child will have her actual preferences (largely) satisfied, if she is caused to exist. Likewise, just as the happy child will not have any actual preferences frustrated, the miserable child will not have any actual preferences satisfied, if he does not come to exist. The focus on actual preferences or on actual persons does nothing to explain the Asymmetry.
45. See Heyd, Genetics, pp. 97-103.
46. See Heyd, Genetics, p. 113.
47. See Heyd, Genetics, p. 84.
48. I say zero intrinsic value, because I have claimed that non-existence can extrinsically harm or benefit a person. In the remaining part of this section, all the values I speak of are intrinsic.
49. Broome also objects to the ascription of zero value to non-existence (personal communication). He argues that having no value is not the same as having zero value. Logic has no temperature, but that does not mean it has zero temperature - and thus is, say, colder than the ocean. However, this does not seem to me to be a good analogy. It makes good sense to restrict temperatures to objects that have certain properties at a molecular level. However, as the case of the person to whom no positive or negative values accrue seems to show, there are cases in which it is the absence of certain (positive) properties that makes an ascription of zero value correct.
50. Of course, satisfactionism should not be confused with the satisfaction account of preferences.
51. For a defence of frustrationism, see C. Fehige, "A Pareto Principle for Possible People," in C. Fehige and U. Wessels (eds.), Preferences (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998). Actually, Fehige calls this view "anti-frustrationism." For a sympathetic discussion (using the term "moral ledger model")
52. see P. Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 128-131.
53. This, of course, is the Asymmetry referred to above.
54. See, e.g., M. Roberts, Child versus Childmaker: Future Persons and Present Duties in Ethics and the Law (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefleld Publishers, 1998)
55. and P. Vallentyne, "Melinda Roberts, Child versus Childmaker: Future Persons and Present Duties in Ethics and the Law," Noûs 34 (2000), pp. 634-647.
56. See, e.g., Holtug, "Utility, Priority and Possible People."