These are questions that the discipline of population ethics deals with
So is this discipline basically about ethics of imposing particular choices on other people (aka the “population”)? That makes it basically the ethics of power or ethics of the ruler(s).
You also call it “morality as altruism”, but I think there is a great deal of difference between having power to impose your own perceptions of “better” (“it’s for your own good”) and not having such power, being limited to offering suggestions and accepting that some/most will be rejected.
“morality as cooperation/contract” view
What happens with this view if you accept that diversity will exist and at least some other people will NOT follow the same principles? Simple game theory analyses in a monoculture environment are easy to do, but have very little relationship to real life.
whether we should be morally glad about the world as it currently exists
That looks to me like a continuous (and probably multidimensional) value. All moralities operate in terms of “should” an none find the world as it is to be perfect. This means that all contemplate the gap between “is” and “should be” and this gap can be seen as great or as not that significant.
whether e.g. we should make more worlds that are exactly like ours
So is this discipline basically about ethics of imposing particular choices on other people (aka the “population”)? That makes it basically the ethics of power or ethics of the ruler(s).
That’s an interesting way to view it, but it seems accurate. Say God created the world, then contractualist ethics or ethics of cooperation didn’t apply to him, but we’d get a sense of what his population ethical stance must have been. No one ever gets asked whether they want to be born. This is one of the issues where there is no such thing as “not taking a stance;” how we act in our lifetimes is going to affect what sort of minds there will or won’t be in the far future. We can discuss suggestions and try to come to a consensus of those currently in power, but future generations are indeed in a powerless position.
how we act in our lifetimes is going to affect what sort of minds there will or won’t be in the far future
Sure, but so what? Your power to deliberately and purposefully affect these things is limited by your ability to understand and model the development of the world sufficiently well to know which levers to pull. I would like to suggest that for “far future” that power is indistinguishable from zero.
Of course, that’s a given.
So is this discipline basically about ethics of imposing particular choices on other people (aka the “population”)? That makes it basically the ethics of power or ethics of the ruler(s).
You also call it “morality as altruism”, but I think there is a great deal of difference between having power to impose your own perceptions of “better” (“it’s for your own good”) and not having such power, being limited to offering suggestions and accepting that some/most will be rejected.
What happens with this view if you accept that diversity will exist and at least some other people will NOT follow the same principles? Simple game theory analyses in a monoculture environment are easy to do, but have very little relationship to real life.
That looks to me like a continuous (and probably multidimensional) value. All moralities operate in terms of “should” an none find the world as it is to be perfect. This means that all contemplate the gap between “is” and “should be” and this gap can be seen as great or as not that significant.
Ask me when you acquire the capability :-)
That’s an interesting way to view it, but it seems accurate. Say God created the world, then contractualist ethics or ethics of cooperation didn’t apply to him, but we’d get a sense of what his population ethical stance must have been.
No one ever gets asked whether they want to be born. This is one of the issues where there is no such thing as “not taking a stance;” how we act in our lifetimes is going to affect what sort of minds there will or won’t be in the far future. We can discuss suggestions and try to come to a consensus of those currently in power, but future generations are indeed in a powerless position.
Sure, but so what? Your power to deliberately and purposefully affect these things is limited by your ability to understand and model the development of the world sufficiently well to know which levers to pull. I would like to suggest that for “far future” that power is indistinguishable from zero.