If I kill someone in their sleep so they don’t experience death, and nobody else is affected by it (maybe it’s a hobo or something), is that okay under the timeless view because their prior utility still “counts”?
If we’re talking preference utilitarianism, in the “timeless sense” you have drastically reduced the utility of the person, since the person (while still living) would have preferred not to be so killed; and you went against that preference.
It’s because their prior utility (their preference not to be killed) counts, that killing someone is drastically different from them not being born in the first place.
No, because they’ll be deprived of any future utility they might have otherwise received by remaining alive.
So if a person is born, has 50 utility of experiences and is then killed, the timeless view says the population had one person of 50 utility added to it by their birth.
By contrast, if they were born, have 50 utility of experiences, avoid being killed, and then have an additional 60 utility of experiences before they die of old age, the timeless view says the population had one person of 110 utility added to it by their birth.
Obviously, all other things being equal, adding someone with 110 utility is better than adding someone with 50, so killing is still bad.
Yes, that’s my point (Maybe my tenses were wrong.) This answer (the weighting) was meant to be the answer to teageegeepea’s question of how exactly the timeless view considers the situation.
If I kill someone in their sleep so they don’t experience death, and nobody else is affected by it (maybe it’s a hobo or something), is that okay under the timeless view because their prior utility still “counts”?
If we’re talking preference utilitarianism, in the “timeless sense” you have drastically reduced the utility of the person, since the person (while still living) would have preferred not to be so killed; and you went against that preference.
It’s because their prior utility (their preference not to be killed) counts, that killing someone is drastically different from them not being born in the first place.
No, because they’ll be deprived of any future utility they might have otherwise received by remaining alive.
So if a person is born, has 50 utility of experiences and is then killed, the timeless view says the population had one person of 50 utility added to it by their birth.
By contrast, if they were born, have 50 utility of experiences, avoid being killed, and then have an additional 60 utility of experiences before they die of old age, the timeless view says the population had one person of 110 utility added to it by their birth.
Obviously, all other things being equal, adding someone with 110 utility is better than adding someone with 50, so killing is still bad.
The obvious way to avoid this is to weight each person by their measure, e.g. the amount of time they spend alive.
I think total utilitarianism already does that.
Yes, that’s my point (Maybe my tenses were wrong.) This answer (the weighting) was meant to be the answer to teageegeepea’s question of how exactly the timeless view considers the situation.