for example see fig. 2 and related argument. Basically, you have 3 worlds (A;B;C), with populations ([x,y];[y,z];[z,x]). You set the welfare of the populations such that
“Assume that all of these people have positive welfare, but that the y people are better off in B as compared to A, the z people are better off in C as compared to B, and the x people are better off in A as compared to C.
Since the x people do not exist in B, B is neither worse nor better than A for them. Similarly, since the z people do not exist in A, A is neither worse nor better than B for them. However, B is better than A for the y people. Consequently, B is better than A according to the second clause of the Person Affecting Restriction. The same reasoning yields that C is better than B, and A is better than C. But if B is better than A, and C is better than B, then transitivity yields that C is better than A. Consequently, C is both better and worse than A.”
So you would have to sacrifice transitivity to “rescue” PAW.
Another argument may be from physics—according to many-worlds interpretation of QM, there exists a world where I was not born, because some high energy particle damaged a part of DNA necessary for my birth. Hence, for each person there exists a world where he does not exists. Taken ad absurdum, nobody has moral value.
I think this is quite devastating analysis for them, even if you would take a “person” to be well defined object.
The Person-Affecting Restriction, Comparativism, and the Moral Status of Potential People, by Gustaf Arrhenius
for example see fig. 2 and related argument. Basically, you have 3 worlds (A;B;C), with populations ([x,y];[y,z];[z,x]). You set the welfare of the populations such that
So you would have to sacrifice transitivity to “rescue” PAW.
Another argument may be from physics—according to many-worlds interpretation of QM, there exists a world where I was not born, because some high energy particle damaged a part of DNA necessary for my birth. Hence, for each person there exists a world where he does not exists. Taken ad absurdum, nobody has moral value.