For the reason I, and owencb, and Unknowns, and peter_hurford, have all given, there is a very big difference between the scenarios that at least on the face of it has nothing to do with aggregation.
Differences related specifically to aggregation may also be relevant, but I don’t think this can be the right example to illustrate this because what it mostly illustrates is that for most of us a whole human life has a lot more moral weight than one millisecond of torture (assuming, again, that “one millisecond of torture” actually denotes anything meaningful).
You might want to consider either finding a different example, or explaining why it’s a good example after all in some more convincing way than just saying “But it is”.
See my edit: the purpose of this post is simply to show that there is a difference between certain reasoning for already existing and potential people. I don’t argue that aggregation is the only difference, nor (in this post) that total utilitarianism for potential people is wrong.
For the reason I, and owencb, and Unknowns, and peter_hurford, have all given, there is a very big difference between the scenarios that at least on the face of it has nothing to do with aggregation.
Differences related specifically to aggregation may also be relevant, but I don’t think this can be the right example to illustrate this because what it mostly illustrates is that for most of us a whole human life has a lot more moral weight than one millisecond of torture (assuming, again, that “one millisecond of torture” actually denotes anything meaningful).
You might want to consider either finding a different example, or explaining why it’s a good example after all in some more convincing way than just saying “But it is”.
See my edit: the purpose of this post is simply to show that there is a difference between certain reasoning for already existing and potential people. I don’t argue that aggregation is the only difference, nor (in this post) that total utilitarianism for potential people is wrong.