Agreed. Take the unhappy pregnant parent raising the hypothetically future happy child—unfortunately I just couldn’t decouple this.
As an unhappy parent, my unhappiness gets transmitted to my children, and their unhappiness feeds back to me in a negative feedback loop. We’re all unhappy. (And, indeed, the literature on postpartum depression and its resultant effects on children are quite clear on this as well—it’s not just my personal experience.)
My rationalisation of this is that I’m a negative utilitarian and I’m not a longtermist—I don’t think the future child’s theoretical happiness can outweigh the the mother’s present unhappiness.
But in actuality I think it’s probably a decoupling issue.
Agreed. Take the unhappy pregnant parent raising the hypothetically future happy child—unfortunately I just couldn’t decouple this.
As an unhappy parent, my unhappiness gets transmitted to my children, and their unhappiness feeds back to me in a negative feedback loop. We’re all unhappy. (And, indeed, the literature on postpartum depression and its resultant effects on children are quite clear on this as well—it’s not just my personal experience.)
My rationalisation of this is that I’m a negative utilitarian and I’m not a longtermist—I don’t think the future child’s theoretical happiness can outweigh the the mother’s present unhappiness.
But in actuality I think it’s probably a decoupling issue.