Yeah, my formulation of this was a bit clumsy. Perhaps instead of a1) “I opt to not mercy-kill this person.” and b1) “I opt to bring this person into existence” we could have a2) “I prefer it that this person continues living.” and b2) “I prefer that this person existed in the first place from the counterfactual in which they never existed.”
This detaches slightly the decision (the verb “opt”) from the statement-of-preferences.
Also even with the earlier formulation, there are I guess, nitpicks which can be made: bringing the same person in existence 99,999 times may not be valued in the same way that bringing 99,999 different persons into existence would.
Yeah, my formulation of this was a bit clumsy. Perhaps instead of
a1) “I opt to not mercy-kill this person.” and
b1) “I opt to bring this person into existence”
we could have
a2) “I prefer it that this person continues living.” and
b2) “I prefer that this person existed in the first place from the counterfactual in which they never existed.”
This detaches slightly the decision (the verb “opt”) from the statement-of-preferences.
Also even with the earlier formulation, there are I guess, nitpicks which can be made: bringing the same person in existence 99,999 times may not be valued in the same way that bringing 99,999 different persons into existence would.