Online lecture by Krister Bykvist (Institute for Futures Studies\, Stockholm &\; Dept. of Philosophy\, Stockholm University): \;&ldquo\;To be or not to be\, what is the value?&rdquo\;
\n\nMon\, 13 June 2022\, 15:00&ndash\;17:00 CET
\n\nAbstract: \;According to the person-affecting restriction\, what is better (worse) must be better (worse) for someone. \;However\, there seems to be a clear tension between this restriction and some of our considered judgements about so-called non-identity cases. For example\, we want to say that creating a very unhappy person makes the world worse\, other things being equal. In order to comply with the person-affecting restriction in this case\, we need to show that coming into existence can be worse for a person\, but it does not seem plausible to say that it can be worse for a person to exist than not to exist. Various attempts to ease this tension give up on the idea that existence cannot be worse for someone than non-existence. Some claim that non-existence can be worse for someone\, but only when they exist\; some claim that non-existing persons can have wellbeing\, and some claim that there are no non-identity cases\, for all individuals exist necessarily and have some wellbeing level or other. I shall argue that all of these attempts come with significant metaphysical and conceptual costs and that sticking to a person-affecting restriction is not worth these costs.
\n\nThe online lecture is organised by the German Society for Utilitarian Studies (https://www.utilitarismusstudien.de).
\nFor Zoom info\, please email \;vuko.andric@uni-bayreuth.de \;or \;philipp.schink@uni-oldenburg.de.
ORGANIZER;CN="Vuko Andrić": METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR