Asymmetric Critical Level Theories∗ John Mori† May 12, 2020 1 Introduction Most normative theories agree that one ought to promote happiness and prevent suffering of con- scious beings, all other things being equal. However, when actions bring conscious beings into existence or preclude them from coming into existence, intuitions concerning their moral status dif- fer widely. Jan Narveson’s Procreation Asymmetry (henceforth, the “Asymmetry”) captures a set of intuitions about bringing lives into existence [Narveson, 1967], and critical level theories provide useful distinctions concerning various levels of wellbeing. I present several theories with features from both the Asymmetry and critical level theories. The development of my theories is primarily motivated by the failures of simpler theories. That is, for each theory I examine, I propose a thought experiment for which the theory implies a potentially unintuitive conclusion, and I present another theory that avoids the same conclusion, while preserving intuitive conclusions from preceding theories. My paper proceeds as follows: first I state a few preliminary assumptions necessary for my analysis. I then introduce the Asymmetry and distinctions related to the Asymmetry, and I briefly argue for supporting wide, soft theories. I evaluate a specific Wide, Soft Theory proposed by [Thomas, 2019], and I demonstrate that the theory produces undesirable conclusions between options of the same population size. I present a Critical Level Theory which makes distinctions to avoid the previous unintuitive conclusion but ∗Term paper for EP&E 471 Directed Reading and Research under the supervision of Shelly Kagan. †I am grateful to Shelly Kagan for the exacting but helpful conversations and comments, Stephen Darwall for first suggesting that I read Derek Parfit’s Reasons and P ersons (I did not think twice about population ethics until years later), and friends and family who endlessly heard me talk about population ethics and encouraged me to pursue the topic more formally. Email: [email protected] 1 also implies an undesirable conclusion when population sizes vary across options. I then marry the distinctions made by the Asymmetry and by critical level theories, and present two theories — the Tolerant and Strict Asymmetric Critical Level theories, which resolve preceding challenges but also have caveats of their own. I extend these theories to allow them to make judgments on option sets of more than two options with the beatpath method. However, this method does not satisfy the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives, which has undesirable implications. I suggest ways to resolve these difficulties and also future directions for refining asymmetric theories. 1.1 Preliminaries First, I briefly state assumptions that are sufficient for discussing the cases and theories I present. I assume welfarism — that wellbeing is all that matters morally. I am agnostic with regards to the correct theory of wellbeing, although theories may offer different intuitions in the thought experi- ments that I propose, in which case, I invite readers to revise aspects of the thought experiments to adequately capture wellbeing under various theories. I do assume that a person’s wellbeing is cardinal — that there exists a function that maps the state of wellbeing onto numbers. I remain agnostic with regards to whether levels of wellbeing are continuous — that there exists infinite levels of wellbeing between any two levels — or discrete — that there exists only finitely many levels between any two levels. If wellbeing is discrete, then I only assume that the smallest unit of wellbeing is fine-grained enough such that the differences in wellbeing in the thought experiments I describe exist. I also assume that the individual instances of wellbeing that a person experiences across the course of their life can be represented by a single value of cumulative wellbeing (think of the value of an integral of a function of wellbeing over time). Of course a life in which one experiences both great joy and great suffering is qualitatively different from a life in which one experiences constant boredom, but I assume that the value of pleasure and pain can be compared such that these two different lives can be appropriately represented by the same value of cumulative wellbeing. In cases that I present in which a person’s cumulative wellbeing is positive but low, the possibility for high variability in one’s experienced wellbeing may influence intuitions about the case, but the thought experiments merely require that a life at that constant positive low wellbeing is possible. Henceforth, I refer to a person’s wellbeing as the single cumulative value of experienced wellbeing. 2 I assume that a life of great flourishing and happiness has positive wellbeing and a life of enormous suffering has negative wellbeing. Let these lives be good lives and bad lives, respectively. I assume there exists a function with arbitrary units of wellbeing that maps a level of very high wellbeing to 100 and a level of very low wellbeing (a life of great suffering) to −100. I do not assume that there exists either upper and lower bounds to wellbeing. My examples still hold even if there exists bounds to wellbeing, as long as the range of wellbeing contains the levels of wellbeing in my thought experiments. The existence of positive and negative wellbeing suggests that there exists a zero level of wellbeing, defined such that all else being equal, one ought not bring a bad life — a life of wellbeing strictly below zero — into existence, while the status of bringing neutral or good lives — lives with zero or positive wellbeing, respectively — into existence depends on the theory. Beliefs can differ regarding where the zero point exists on the wellbeing continuum — how a person’s life should go for it to be assigned zero wellbeing. The empirical characteristics of bad, neutral, and good lives will be better illustrated in thought experiments that I present later. I assume that wellbeing is interpersonally comparable — that the wellbeing of one person can be compared to the wellbeing of another person in terms of how much each contributes to the total wellbeing of the population. Theories in population ethics broadly fall into two categories: axiological, which concern the betterness/worseness of states of affairs; and deontic, which concern what one ought to do, what is permissible, etc. Many authors have demonstrated impossibility theorems in population axiology — that there does not exist a theory which satisfies a set of desirable axioms [Arrhenius, 2000]. The theories that I propose are deontic, although analogies can be made between the deontic judgments of “ought to choose x over y” to axiological relations of “x better than y”. I only consider cases that have neither risk nor uncertainty — one can extend my theories to options with uncertainty with Thomas’ supervenience principle [Thomas, 2019]. To clarify deontic judgments, an option is required if one ought to choose that option and is not required if it is not the case that one ought to choose that option. An option is impermissible if it is the case that one ought not to choose it and is permissible if it is not the case that one ought not to choose it. The theories when they are first presented all take pairs of options as inputs and make pairwise deontic judgments. I later discuss a method that takes these pairwise judgments to imply deontic conclusions in cases where there are more than two options. 3 2 The Asymmetry The Asymmetry is the deontic1 view that one ought not to bring a bad life into existence, but it is not the case that one ought to bring a good life into existence, all other things equal. Consider my rendition of one of Parfit’s thought experiments that illustrates the Asymmetry [Parfit, 1984]: person A and their partner are considering whether to conceive a child who, if born, would be person B. Person A expects that from the joys and hardships of child rearing, their wellbeing would remain the same whether they decide to have the child or not. However, upon visiting their doctor, person A learns that they have a rare medical condition such that if they were to have a child, the child would live a short, bad life in constant suffering. Fortunately, the doctor can easily administer a treatment for the condition, such that if person A were to have a child after receiving the treatment, the child would live a good life. Person A could choose one of three options: not have the child (x), have the child without receiving the treatment (y), or have the child after receiving the treatment (z). For now, suppose that our theory of personal identity deems that the child is the same child whether they are born with or without the treatment — I will later discuss cases in which the identities of people differ across options. We can represent this case in the following table: Case 1: Basic Asymmetry Option x y z A 50 50 50 Person B − −50 50 Each person’s wellbeing under each option is given in the table. The dash for B’s wellbeing under option x indicates that B does not come into existence under x. Let a necessary person be a person who exists in all options. On the other hand, let a contingent person be one who exists in at least one option and does not exist in at least one other option. In this case A is a necessary person and B is a contingent person. Recall that we first consider the Asymmetry (and other theories) in pairwise options and extend the theories to larger option sets later. 1The Asymmetry can also be presented under axiologies [Frick, 2014]. I only examine the deontic version.