For me this rewording takes the teeth out of the statement
And that’s why you should be careful about it. With “barely worth living”, you have a clear image of what you’re thinking about. With “barely meeting the criteria for me valuing them” you probably don’t, you just have an inferential insurance that you are happy applying the repugnant conclusion to them. The argument for total value is not actually any stronger or weaker than it was before—you’ve just decided that the intution against it ought to be rationally overridden, because the opposite is “trivially true”.
And that’s why you should be careful about it. With “barely worth living”, you have a clear image of what you’re thinking about. With “barely meeting the criteria for me valuing them” you probably don’t, you just have an inferential insurance that you are happy applying the repugnant conclusion to them. The argument for total value is not actually any stronger or weaker than it was before—you’ve just decided that the intution against it ought to be rationally overridden, because the opposite is “trivially true”.