Unless the new person’s life is a lot better, I think most total utilitarians would and should agree with you. Much of the utility associated with a person’s life happens in other people’s lives. If you get struck by lightning, others might lose a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend, a colleague, a teacher, etc. Some things that have been started might never be finished. For this + replacement to be a good thing just on account of your replacement’s better life, the replacement’s life would need to be sufficiently better than yours to outweigh all those things. I would in general expect that to be hard.
Obviously the further we get away from familiar experiences the less reliable our intuitions are. But I think my intuition remains the same, even if the person in question is a hermit in some wilderness somewhere.
Unless the new person’s life is a lot better, I think most total utilitarians would and should agree with you. Much of the utility associated with a person’s life happens in other people’s lives. If you get struck by lightning, others might lose a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend, a colleague, a teacher, etc. Some things that have been started might never be finished. For this + replacement to be a good thing just on account of your replacement’s better life, the replacement’s life would need to be sufficiently better than yours to outweigh all those things. I would in general expect that to be hard.
Obviously the further we get away from familiar experiences the less reliable our intuitions are. But I think my intuition remains the same, even if the person in question is a hermit in some wilderness somewhere.