In “Morality and Marginal Existence,” I defined the concept of “marginal existence”—which is basically the proposition of creating a new person—and discussed what it would look like to assert zero-value marginal existence to avoid counter-intuitive conclusions such as the mere addition paradox. It was fun, and it generated great discussion.*
I was compelled to specify the concept of marginal existence because of 1) a feeling that existing arguments don’t treat hypothetical people properly and 2) my discomfort with the mere addition paradox (also known as the repugnant conclusion), as well as pro- and anti-natalism. I think that the arguments that lead to these conclusions include sneaky introductions of inappropriate conditions. Clarity on marginal existence fixes this.
There are two ways you can develop the concept of marginal existence. The first is the less formal, more intuitive way: a marginal existence is a hypothetical, incremental person. Here, we’re using “marginal” the way it’s used in economics, where it basically means “incremental” (“marginal utility” is the utility you get by consuming an additional unit of something). The second way is the more formal, logically useful way: a marginal existence is an unconditional existence. Here, we’re using “marginal” the way it’s used in statistics, where it basically means “unconditional.” I hold that these two interpretations / definitions of the concept are equivalent.
If you claim that it is morally right or wrong to have kids, you are making a claim about marginal existences. The hypothetical kids in question are marginal. When I say that most existing arguments don’t properly handle marginal existence, I mean that it is a problem to fail to recognize that there is a difference between claims about improving the well-being of existing people and claims about introducing new people. I think basically everyone agrees that improving the well-being of existing people is good, but not everyone accepts the utilitarian logic that says: “Well-being is good, therefore the more people there are to exhibit well-being, the more good.” The discrepancy, I think, comes from different positions on marginal existence. It is perfectly reasonable to hesitate, and say: “Yes, well-being is good. But is it necessarily good to create more people to have a greater total quantity of well-being? If we introduce a new person who experiences some amount of well-being, we haven’t just moved from a smaller quantity of well-being to a larger quantity of well-being—we’ve also moved from a smaller capacity for well-being to a larger capacity for well-being. I’m not saying it’s meaningless, but maybe it should be treated differently—maybe there’s no ‘therefore’ there. Maybe the ‘goodness’ of well-being has more to do with a transition in the state of affairs. It is good to do things which bring about positive consequences, and ‘positive’ basically comes down to an improvement in well-being somewhere, somehow. If we understand good consequences to be more about good transitions in the state of affairs, then we can require that the persons subject to the state of affairs are conditioned to exist. In which case, the question of the utility of introducing new people breaks down: if they are conditioned to exist, their existence is not a question.”
Treating marginal existences the same as actual existences (which is to say, treating people unconditioned to exist the same as people conditioned to exist, or treating hypothetical people the same as real people) gives you pure & strong Benthamite utilitarianism. If would describe yourself as a utilitarian, but not as a “pure” utilitarian, it is likely because you have a nuanced stance about marginal existence—and this is good.
There is a qualitative difference between propositions regarding people who already exist and are experiencing and will continue to experience and propositions regarding hypothetical people that have no capacity for experience. Furthermore, I think it is crucial in arguments that we distinguish between conditional and unconditional terms. This is already an accepted practice—writers in the rationality and philosophy sphere will frequently bracket propositions with “conditional on…” in order to clarify the question under discussion, because it is important to distinguish between the things that are taken to be true and the things that are being evaluated. I’ve just never seen them do this with hypothetical persons.
The mere addition paradox arises when you are comparing scenarios with differing amounts of well-being for unconditional persons. The paradox is: under utilitarianism, a world of N happy people is worse than a world of M miserable people, M >> N. It’s a weird comparison, though, isn’t it? We’re comparing the well-being of persons that aren’t conditioned to exist (they have to be unconditional, otherwise they would have to appear in both worlds.) Described like this, you can already sort of see the source of the paradox: What if they just didn’t exist, then?
You can sort of avoid the repugnancy by demanding clear conditions. Imagine a discussion like this:
Person A: The problem with utilitarianism is it leads to the repugnant conclusion. Consider two hypothetical worlds, X and Y. In world X, there are 5000 extremely happy and satisfied people. In world Y, there is some huge number of people whose lives are just barely worth living. Under utilitarianism, there must be some number of miserable people, M, you can put in world Y to make it preferable to world X, because you can add up all of their utility to get a number bigger than whatever the fixed utility of world X is. But that is saying that a world consisting of nothing but miserable people is better than a world of completely happy people!
Person B: Well, what are we really comparing here? Conditional on the existence of M people, it is definitely better that those people are happy. But without conditioning on the existence of those M people that you would have to put in world Y, I can’t really make a comparison.
…To be clear, I’m not trying to say that leaving it unconditional is a logical error or an abject philosophical failure or anything. A person committed to utilitarianism would respond:
Person C: No, even unconditional on the existence of the M-N miserable people, world Y is better.
I just think that is wrong, and unnecessary. You can apply a similar demand for conditions to avoid pro-natalism:
Person A: Utilitarianism seems obviously true, so if you’re reasonably sure that if you have a kid and his or her life will be worth living, it is a moral good to have kids. In fact, we should all have as many kids as possible because that’s probably the easiest way to increase utility and earn our morality bucks.
Person B: Utilitarianism’s assertion that increasing the well-being of people is the basis of morality seems obviously true, but I’m not sure if it applies here. Having a kid doesn’t necessarily mean you’re increasing the well-being of people, it means you’re introducing a new person capable of experiencing well-being. If you’ve decided that you’re going to have a kid, then we can condition on that kid’s existence, and I would say it’s morally important to make sure that kid has a good well being, but unconditional on the existence of that kid, I don’t think I can make a moral evaluation of the proposition.
…Again, I don’t think pro-natalism is horrible or repugnant, and there are lots of really smart people who hold that view. They would respond:
Person C: Unconditional on the existence of the kid, it is a moral good to create the kid.
…And that’s fine. I’m simply advocating for it to be made explicit when this is left unconditional or when the condition is introduced, because I think it’s a source of both unnecessary confusion and valid disagreement. And, I think the concept of marginal existence helps explain views of people who lean towards consequentialism but not pro-natalism or feel there is something wrong with the steps leading to the repugnant conclusion.
*Bentham’s Bulldog wrote a response to my post. Them and I clearly have very different starting points for the questions I put forward, but I appreciate them taking the time to break it down. I would love to see them respond this post too and the concept of marginal existence specifically coming from a strong utilitarian view.
The Contractualist, who writes The Social Contract, Examined, asked, “What is the meta-ethical basis for denying the value of additional life?” This is a fair and important question. I’m sure people have different intuitions on this detail, but to me, the meta-ethical basis is more or less self-evident—we shouldn’t assign any moral value to the consequences of a person that isn’t conditioned to exist. It’s a weak position because it is based on unconditional term, but also, the person is hypothetical, and the person has no consciousness with which they can experience well-being or lack of well-being.
They also ask, “You know future people are at least capable of experiencing pleasure, so why discount that to 0?” To which I would say, I know a future person is capable of experiencing pleasure if I condition on their existence, at which point they are no longer marginal. This, to me, is another example of how easy it is to get loose with the conditions, and this hurts our ability to clearly reason about these things. The question becomes whether it is sensible to condition on their existence, and I think this is where the longtermism discussion needs to move. We should definitely condition on the existence of the next generation, and the one after that, and many more after that. But should we condition on the existence of all theoretically possible future people? Certainly not.
Parrhesia pointed out that the system outlined in the original post is basically the same as the person-affecting view, which has some real issues:
Most extreme would be something like “a single pinprick of an already existing child is worse than adding 100 billion new people to Hell for eternal torment.” Which seems like a worse bullet to bite when compared to the RC.
Indeed, because under the system I outlined, the marginal people in hell come with a value of zero. I appreciate him poking a hole here, because it forced me to think clearer about what I was trying to get at.
I think what I really wanted to establish was null-value marginal existence, which would be the position that marginal existences have null value, i.e. moral questions about unconditional persons cannot be evaluated. Again, I think this stance makes sense, because marginal existences do not exist! It is not important that we are able to make moral judgements about consequences for people who do not exist, because they have no capacity for well-being or suffering, no capacity for consequences at all. When they have this capacity, because they already exist or because we condition on their existence, it becomes important.
You might disagree with that treatment of marginal existence. And that’s fine—what’s important, I think, is that we’re clear about when we’re discussing marginal existences, and we are explicit when we introduce the condition of existence.
Thanks for the reference!
I'd similarly argue for zero-marginal existence, but for a different reason. I argue that moral duties and rights are limited to free, conscious people. Fictions, like future people, are not free, and therefore sit outside of our moral universe (although something like a "just savings" principle is justified since we can be reasonably certain that future people in general will exist)
I don't think you can be a utilitarian and value future people at 0. For example, say you value solar energy and believe it should be maximized. You can either make existing solar panels more efficient or you can create more solar panels. It wouldn't make sense to value additional solar panels at 0 since what you care about fundamentally is solar energy. So long as you value solar energy, and additional solar panels create more solar energy, you should value more solar panels. The same applies to welfare and future people.
(I hope you can forgive a bit of self-promotion, but I discuss the role of freedom in morality and the "reasonable certainty" standard here https://neonomos.substack.com/p/the-social-contract-part-2-why-freedom and here https://neonomos.substack.com/p/the-reasonable-certainty-standard)