You lose me the moment you introduce the moral premise. Why is it better for two people to each live a million years than one to live two million? This looks superficially the same sort of question as “Why is it better for two people to each have a million dollars than for one to have two million?”, but in the latter scenario, one person has two million while the other has nothing. In the lifetimes case, there is no other person. The moral premise presupposes that nonexistent people deserve some of other peoples’ existence in the same way that existing paupers deserve some of other peoples’ wealth.
You may have an argument to that effect, but I didn’t see it in my speed-run through your slides (nice graphic style, BTW, how do you do that?) or in your comment above. Your argument that we place value on future people only considers our desire to avoid calamities falling upon existent future people.
Diminishing returns for longer lifespans is only a problem to be tackled if it happens. The only diminishing returns I see around me for the lifespans we have result from decline in health, not excess of experience.
I didn’t particularly fill in the valuing future persons argument—in my defence, it is a fairly common view in the literature not to discount future persons, so I just assumed it. If I wanted to provide reasons, I’d point to future calamities (which only seem plausibly really bad if future people have interests or value—although that needn’t on be on a par with ours), reciprocity across time (in the same way we would want people in the past to weigh our interests equal to theirs when applicable, same applies to us and our successors), and a similar sort of Rawlsian argument that if we didn’t know we would live now on in the future, the sort of deal we would strike would be those currently living (whoever they are) to weigh future interests equal to their own. Elaboration pending one day, I hope!
You lose me the moment you introduce the moral premise. Why is it better for two people to each live a million years than one to live two million? This looks superficially the same sort of question as “Why is it better for two people to each have a million dollars than for one to have two million?”, but in the latter scenario, one person has two million while the other has nothing. In the lifetimes case, there is no other person. The moral premise presupposes that nonexistent people deserve some of other peoples’ existence in the same way that existing paupers deserve some of other peoples’ wealth.
You may have an argument to that effect, but I didn’t see it in my speed-run through your slides (nice graphic style, BTW, how do you do that?) or in your comment above. Your argument that we place value on future people only considers our desire to avoid calamities falling upon existent future people.
Diminishing returns for longer lifespans is only a problem to be tackled if it happens. The only diminishing returns I see around me for the lifespans we have result from decline in health, not excess of experience.
The nifty program is Prezi.
I didn’t particularly fill in the valuing future persons argument—in my defence, it is a fairly common view in the literature not to discount future persons, so I just assumed it. If I wanted to provide reasons, I’d point to future calamities (which only seem plausibly really bad if future people have interests or value—although that needn’t on be on a par with ours), reciprocity across time (in the same way we would want people in the past to weigh our interests equal to theirs when applicable, same applies to us and our successors), and a similar sort of Rawlsian argument that if we didn’t know we would live now on in the future, the sort of deal we would strike would be those currently living (whoever they are) to weigh future interests equal to their own. Elaboration pending one day, I hope!