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differs? In case of twins, a method of aggregation has to be used in order
to determine the overall welfare of the outcome.
Which method of aggregation should be used? The most obvious
possibilities would be either summing up as suggested by the Total View,
or taking the average, as suggested by the Average View. (Total View as
a method of aggregation should not be confused with the previously
mentioned Total View on whose welfare to take into account. These
are unrelated views about different issues, which confusingly have the
same name.) Taking the average might require having one child, rather
than two, if that single child's welfare level is higher. Although the
Average View yields intuitively acceptable results in some cases, it has
very implausible implications. It requires killing beings whose welfare
level is beneath average, if this raises the average level of welfare. It also
implies that having a child whose welfare level is beneath average is,
ceteris paribus, unacceptable, even if the child's welfare level is very
high. Counter-intuitive implications are no reason for rejecting a view.
However, killing all but the happiest being seems contrary to what utili-
tarianism is all about: maximising welfare for sentient beings. The alter-
native method of aggregation, summing up, might imply that having
twins is better, even if every child as such were worse off than the single
child in the alternative outcome would be. This implication somewhat
resembles the Repugnant Conclusion: The total amount of welfare is
bigger, although each individual is worse off.
Does the choice of the total view as a method of aggregation mean
that the Prior Existence View also implies the Repugnant Conclusion?
Among necessary beings, the greatest amount of welfare might indeed be
found in a group of beings of which each individual is worse off than the
individual(s) in an alternative outcome. In order to illustrate this, imagine
a slightly different version of the in-vitro fertilisation case. Imagine that
the woman would be somewhat worse off if she had twins. Imagine that
the aggregate welfare of the woman and the twins would be bigger than
the aggregate welfare of her and the single child. The Prior Existence
View would count the welfare of all because the woman and 'her next
child/children' are all necessary beings. Differences of genetic identity
and number are supposed to be irrelevant. The Prior Existence View
in conjunction with the Total View as a method of aggregation would
favour having the twins. I think that this is an unacceptable implication.
It brings in the Repugnant Conclusion. Furthermore, it stretches the idea
of the Person-Affecting Restriction too far. It would in many respects
make Prior Existence Utilitarianism identical with Total Utilitarianism.
There is no obvious answer to the question how the version of Prior
Existence Utilitarianism proposed in this topic should deal with different
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