I think utilitarians should generally stay out of the business of making moral assessments of people as opposed to actions.
I think the best way to do this is to “naturalize” all the events involved. Instead of having someone kill or create someone else, imagine the events happened purely because of natural forces.
As it happens, in the case of killing and replacing a person, my intuitions remain the same. If someone is struck by lightning, and a new person pops out of a rock to replace them, my sense is that, on the net, a bad thing has happened, even if the new person has a somewhat better life than the first person. It would have been better if the first person hadn’t been struck by lightning, even if the only way to stop that from happening would also stop the rock from creating the new person.
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.
I think the best way to do this is to “naturalize” all the events involved. Instead of having someone kill or create someone else, imagine the events happened purely because of natural forces.
As it happens, in the case of killing and replacing a person, my intuitions remain the same. If someone is struck by lightning, and a new person pops out of a rock to replace them, my sense is that, on the net, a bad thing has happened, even if the new person has a somewhat better life than the first person. It would have been better if the first person hadn’t been struck by lightning, even if the only way to stop that from happening would also stop the rock from creating the new person.
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.