Worrying about extinction is one thing, and we’re nowhere near that point, but does the pro fertility case rely on the philosophical assumption that more people is better? Surely you can see how some people might not find that very compelling.
I think that various “pro-fertility” people have a variety of motivations.
But “more people are better” ought to be a belief of everyone, whether pro-fertility or not. It’s an “other things being equal” statement, of course—more people at no cost or other tradeoff is good. One can believe that and still think that less people would be a good idea in the current situation. But if you don’t think more people are good when there’s no tradeoff, I don’t see what moral view you can have other than nihilism or some form of extreme egoism.
BTW: I’m not ruling out an expansive definition of “people”—maybe gorillas are people, maybe some alien species are, maybe some AIs would be—but I think that’s outside the scope of the current discussion.
But “more people are better” ought to be a belief of everyone, whether pro-fertility or not. It’s an “other things being equal” statement, of course—more people at no cost or other tradeoff is good. One can believe that and still think that less people would be a good idea in the current situation. But if you don’t think more people are good when there’s no tradeoff, I don’t see what moral view you can have other than nihilism or some form of extreme egoism.
Do all variants of downside focused ethics get dismissed as extreme egoism? Hard to see them as nihilistic.
I suspect clarity and consensus on the meaning of “more people at no cost or other tradeoff” to be difficult. If “more people” means more happy people preoccupied with the welfare of the least fortunate, then sure “at no cost or other tradeoff” should suffice for practically everyone to get behind it. But that seems like quite a biased distribution for a default meaning of “more people.”
Worrying about extinction is one thing, and we’re nowhere near that point, but does the pro fertility case rely on the philosophical assumption that more people is better? Surely you can see how some people might not find that very compelling.
I think that various “pro-fertility” people have a variety of motivations.
But “more people are better” ought to be a belief of everyone, whether pro-fertility or not. It’s an “other things being equal” statement, of course—more people at no cost or other tradeoff is good. One can believe that and still think that less people would be a good idea in the current situation. But if you don’t think more people are good when there’s no tradeoff, I don’t see what moral view you can have other than nihilism or some form of extreme egoism.
BTW: I’m not ruling out an expansive definition of “people”—maybe gorillas are people, maybe some alien species are, maybe some AIs would be—but I think that’s outside the scope of the current discussion.
Do all variants of downside focused ethics get dismissed as extreme egoism? Hard to see them as nihilistic.
I suspect clarity and consensus on the meaning of “more people at no cost or other tradeoff” to be difficult. If “more people” means more happy people preoccupied with the welfare of the least fortunate, then sure “at no cost or other tradeoff” should suffice for practically everyone to get behind it. But that seems like quite a biased distribution for a default meaning of “more people.”