Total View versus Prior Existence View - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 72

two main opposing views are the Total View that counts the possible
welfare of contingent beings and the Prior Existence View that does not
count the possible welfare of contingent beings. As impartiality is an
important aspect of utilitarianism, it seems that excluding the welfare of
contingent beings is in need of a justification. How can it be justified not
to count the welfare of contingent beings, given the utilitarian imparti-
ality? In other words, is the Prior Existence View compatible with utili-
tarianism at all? The Prior Existence View depends on two assumptions
for being a consistent utilitarian view. It depends on a particular view
about what matters in the evaluation of outcomes and on a particular
view about whether coming into existence can benefit or harm a being.

2 Whose welfare should count?

As I have already pointed out, the Replaceability Argument only works
if the welfare of the not yet existing animal is taken into account. This
second animal does not yet exist, but it might possibly come to exist.
Therefore, it can be called a 'possible' being: a being that might possibly
exist. As is common in this debate, I will also refer to possible beings
as potential beings: those who do not yet exist. Whether the welfare of
possible beings should count in the aggregation of welfare is controver-
sial within utilitarianism. There are three rival positions:

(a) The welfare of possible beings should never count .

(b) some possible beings should count.
The welfare of possible beings

The welfare of

(c) should always count . 3

Gustaf Arrhenius introduces the controversy about whether or not to
count the welfare of possible beings as follows. He explains that different
theoretical approaches count the welfare of sentient beings differently
depending on the temporal location or the modal features of their lives. 4
The criterion of 'temporal location' is easy to grasp. One might argue, for
instance, that the welfare of future beings should not count. Thus, one
might hold that only the welfare of presently existing beings counts.
The 'present' is a temporal location. So, one can argue that whether a
being's welfare counts depends on whether it exists in this temporal
location, i.e. whether it presently exists. This is exactly what presentists
claim. They claim that only the welfare of presently existing beings
counts. Hence they opt for (a) above. What about the other criterion
that Arrhenius mentions? What does it mean to decide about whether
or not to take a being's welfare into account on the basis of the modal