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non-existent only the absence of properties is not sufficient for making
a comparison between two states of affairs in terms of prudential value.
If a comparison is to be made in terms of welfare, what we need are two
levels of welfare. However, it has been argued that the absence of value
in the case of non-existence cannot be measured with the welfare scale:
it cannot be indicated on that scale. The most natural point on the scale
would be to count the absence of value as zero value. Nonetheless, it
has been objected that this is impossible. This objection has been called
the Incommensurability Objection. The Incommensurability Objection
claims that non-existence and existence are incommensurable in terms
of welfare. The welfare scale measures prudential value, but nothing
can be good, bad, or neutral for a non-existent being. I will discuss this
objection in the following section.
3 Are existence and non-existence commensurable?
It has been argued that it is nonsensical to assume that being caused to
exist can benefit someone. Narveson makes this point as follows:
The issue here is this. Can we say that the creation of a given life - its
conception, say - is the conferring of a benefit on the person who
results? Suppose that the resulting person is happy; and suppose too
that some of his happiness is due to a fortunate genetic make-up.
Since conception is not something which happens to someone who
is already around, being instead the creation or production of the
person in question, we cannot say that the resulting person is better
off than he or she would have been if that event had not taken place.
The best one could do is set the utility-state of that possible person
at zero if not conceived, and then say that his conception has bene-
fited him to, say, the extent of the contribution to his life-long utility
attributable to his genetic make-up as opposed to other contributing
factors. But that is to equate the condition of someone who is neither
happy nor unhappy with that of one who is dead, and that seems
wrong; worse yet, it is to equate it with 'one' who was never born in
the first place, and thus has no identity at all. And that seems very
strange indeed.
6
So, Narveson argues that in order to compare non-existence with exist-
ence in terms of utility, it has to get a utility score. Utility is defined
in terms of prudential value: welfare. Can non-existence get a welfare
score? One might argue that non-existence should score a zero in terms
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