CEPPA Talk (in-person) – Michael Otsuka (Rutgers University)

I defend the view that, when a person’s life is worth living, her existence is not merely good for her. It is also better for her than her never existing. I defend this view against the objection that it absurdly implies that nonexistence is bad for the multitude of merely possible people who are never brought into existence and who therefore have complaints against us for not procreating them. I respond to this objection by defending the following asymmetry, which consists of an affirmation of the first, combined with the denial of the second, of these two claims:

Claim 1. If p actually exists with a life worth living, then: if (contrary to fact) p had not existed, that would have been worse for p.

Claim 2. If p does not actually exist, then this is worse for p than if (contrary to fact) p had existed with a life worth living.

I also defend the view that an appeal to the fact that a person’s life is better for her than her nonexistence can provide a response to the complaint that it is not going as well as it could.