OK I guess this is the ‘person-affecting view’ I’ve heard slightly about—that nothing is lost by animals/people not being brought into existence. No doubt this is gone into far greater depth in population ethics etc (of which I know little), but my gut response would be that by not being brought into existence the potential animals in question are missing out, even though they don’t know they are. As their potential happiness is being prevented. We might say, the world is missing their happiness.
If Stone Age people were happier than wild animals, that only strengthens my case. And I expect in the Stone Age they weren’t happy at all, by modern standards, if we consider the least happy current country in the world (Afghanistan), whose people rate themselves 2.5 on a 0-10 scale, which is around ‘barely worth living’ (worse than death being considered below about 2). I assume levels of suffering from violence, disease, injury, cold and starvation were typically higher in Stone Age societies then in present Afghanistan, hence happiness lower. And wild animals’ ‘happiness’ lower still.
While I have a position on the case—I’d rather eat lab-grown meat and conduct trades with other animals that don’t involve their suffering and slaughter, even if that results in somewhat fewer lives barely worth living existing in the first place—I wasn’t arguing against it with that point, rather thinking that your view of the stone age and human progress may benefit from challenging some of the assumptions to it.
Peoples’ level of happiness and peoples’ level of suffering are somewhat distinct, for one. For happiness, there are baseline levels, hedonic adaptation, adjusting to the situation, deliberate abuse… I can tweak my baseline happiness upward, but I don’t necessarily want to.
People in Afghanistan and other modern places have versions of suffering available to them that would have been far less available in the (early especially) stone age, including weapons technology for war, the ability to muster state violence in a significant degree and other political innovations, chemical pollution and the physical risks specifically of heavy machinery, having people a continent away readily able to offset their reduction in suffering by inflicting the externalities to you … I think it is reasonable to look into the idea of whether levels of suffering actually were higher in Stone Age societies on a by person level. (Ones in regions where it never gets cold would likely not have higher levels of suffering from cold, as a trivial example...)
(Edit, additionally to address first paragraph) For person-affecting view—Some is lost by animals and people not being brought into existence, but I don’t feel like it has much ethical implication short of when that is actually genocidal, which is group-level ethics rather than individual.
The fact the infinite combinations of genes and experiences I could possibly have grown from are missing out on experiencing life is a much less serious tragedy to me than the suffering of any person who actually exists.
If I was one of a set of possible embryos selected from to deliberately not have benign or at least survivable traits because society discriminates against (for example) left-handed people, I’d have somewhat more concerns.
Life expectancy at birth in Afghanistan is 64, which is 2 or 3 times in the Stone Age. Suggesting worse general health back then, with attendant suffering. (Infant deaths are of course a substantial part of the lower life expectancy, but by no means all.)
Indeed there’s a wider ranges of potential causes of suffering now, but I’m not convinced they’re worse overall. E.g. being shot is not clearly worse than being stabbed. People are rarely burnt at the stake now. Chemical pollution is fairly new, but there were plenty of other poisons before. Disease/death from air pollution is predominantly a problem of non-industrial societies (from cooking over open fires), not cars etc.
And of course modern medicine provides ways of alleviating suffering, via treatments and anaesthetics, mostly unavailable in the Stone Age (though at least to some extent available in Afghanistan).
OK I guess this is the ‘person-affecting view’ I’ve heard slightly about—that nothing is lost by animals/people not being brought into existence. No doubt this is gone into far greater depth in population ethics etc (of which I know little), but my gut response would be that by not being brought into existence the potential animals in question are missing out, even though they don’t know they are. As their potential happiness is being prevented. We might say, the world is missing their happiness.
If Stone Age people were happier than wild animals, that only strengthens my case. And I expect in the Stone Age they weren’t happy at all, by modern standards, if we consider the least happy current country in the world (Afghanistan), whose people rate themselves 2.5 on a 0-10 scale, which is around ‘barely worth living’ (worse than death being considered below about 2). I assume levels of suffering from violence, disease, injury, cold and starvation were typically higher in Stone Age societies then in present Afghanistan, hence happiness lower. And wild animals’ ‘happiness’ lower still.
While I have a position on the case—I’d rather eat lab-grown meat and conduct trades with other animals that don’t involve their suffering and slaughter, even if that results in somewhat fewer lives barely worth living existing in the first place—I wasn’t arguing against it with that point, rather thinking that your view of the stone age and human progress may benefit from challenging some of the assumptions to it.
Peoples’ level of happiness and peoples’ level of suffering are somewhat distinct, for one. For happiness, there are baseline levels, hedonic adaptation, adjusting to the situation, deliberate abuse… I can tweak my baseline happiness upward, but I don’t necessarily want to.
People in Afghanistan and other modern places have versions of suffering available to them that would have been far less available in the (early especially) stone age, including weapons technology for war, the ability to muster state violence in a significant degree and other political innovations, chemical pollution and the physical risks specifically of heavy machinery, having people a continent away readily able to offset their reduction in suffering by inflicting the externalities to you … I think it is reasonable to look into the idea of whether levels of suffering actually were higher in Stone Age societies on a by person level. (Ones in regions where it never gets cold would likely not have higher levels of suffering from cold, as a trivial example...)
(Edit, additionally to address first paragraph)
For person-affecting view—Some is lost by animals and people not being brought into existence, but I don’t feel like it has much ethical implication short of when that is actually genocidal, which is group-level ethics rather than individual.
The fact the infinite combinations of genes and experiences I could possibly have grown from are missing out on experiencing life is a much less serious tragedy to me than the suffering of any person who actually exists.
If I was one of a set of possible embryos selected from to deliberately not have benign or at least survivable traits because society discriminates against (for example) left-handed people, I’d have somewhat more concerns.
Re Stone Age suffering, as you probably know, violence has been in long-term big decline, and much higher in non-states than states:
https://slides.ourworldindata.org/war-and-violence/#/title-slide
Life expectancy at birth in Afghanistan is 64, which is 2 or 3 times in the Stone Age. Suggesting worse general health back then, with attendant suffering. (Infant deaths are of course a substantial part of the lower life expectancy, but by no means all.)
Indeed there’s a wider ranges of potential causes of suffering now, but I’m not convinced they’re worse overall. E.g. being shot is not clearly worse than being stabbed. People are rarely burnt at the stake now. Chemical pollution is fairly new, but there were plenty of other poisons before. Disease/death from air pollution is predominantly a problem of non-industrial societies (from cooking over open fires), not cars etc.
And of course modern medicine provides ways of alleviating suffering, via treatments and anaesthetics, mostly unavailable in the Stone Age (though at least to some extent available in Afghanistan).