Appendices - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 148

fertilised eggs. Thus, she will either have a single child or twins. (Let's
ignore for the sake of simplification that each implanted egg might
develop into twins, and that it is unsure whether it will develop into
any child at all.) If she has twins, each of them will be somewhat
worse off than a single child would be. (Let's assume this is because
of complications during gestation or birth, or because of limited
resources of the mother to provide for them.) Since she would soon
pass the age-boundary of 40 years, this would be her last chance of
having children.
Now, what would it mean to do the best for 'her child/ children'? How
should the fact of the different numbers be taken into account? Any
view about the moral status of possible beings should also tell us how to
deal with different-number choices.
Can the Wide Person-Affecting View handle different-number
choices? I have defended the following approach to different people
(same number) choices: 'The woman will have her next child in both
cases. So, it is a necessary being. Genetic make-up is irrelevant for her
obligations concerning her next child. So, she should do what is best
for her next child, whoever it will be.' Yet, what should we say if the
choice affects whether she will have one child or twins? We might
say: 'The woman will have her next child/children in both cases. So,
it is a (or they are) necessary being(s). Genetic make-up and number
are irrelevant with regard to her obligations towards her next child/
children. Therefore, she should do what is best for her next child/ chil-
dren.' This way of framing the situation seems to be possible. Caspar
Hare, for one, mentions as an advantage of his account of de-dicto
betterness, that it is applicable to same-number choices as well as to
different-number choices. Unfortunately, Hare does not show what
exactly de-dicto betterness in different-number choices amounts to. 3
Neither does Clark Wolf show how his treatment of standard non-
identity cases, can be applied to different-number choices. Wolf recog-
nizes the problem and says that he believes there is 'a natural way' to
accommodate it. Yet, unfortunately, he offers no clue about what this
way would be. 4
It is not obvious how the Wide Person-Affecting Restriction should
handle different-number choices. The most straightforward way seems
to be to treat number like genetic identity as morally irrelevant, and to
focus exclusively on overall welfare. So, in the above-mentioned case of
in-vitro fertilization, the woman should, all else being relevantly equal,
make the choice that makes 'her next child/children' better off. What
would this amount to, when the number of children in each outcome