Draft a34, September 2, 2020 Equality for Prospective People: A Novel Statement and Defence. Abstract: A possible person's conditional expected well-being is what the quality of their prospects would be if they were to come into existence. This paper examines the role that this form of expected well-being should play in distributing benefits among prospective people and in deciding who to bring into existence. It argues for a novel egalitarian view on which it is important to ensure equality in people's life prospects, not merely between actual individuals, but also between all individuals who, given our choices, have a chance of coming into existence. The paper argues that such "egalitarianism for prospective people" springs from equal concern for each person and has plausible implications. It further shows that it has a rationale in respect for both the unity of the individual and the separateness of persons. Finally, it defends this view against a key objection and shows it is superior to a rival view. Introduction When we consider possible future people, we take an interest in what their prospects would be if they came into existence. For example, in 2019, there was widespread reporting of the UK Office for National Statistics' updated estimates for the life expectancy of babies born in the UK in between 2019 and 2043. One headline-grabbing finding was that, due to a slowing of the estimated rate of health improvements, future people's prospects had worsened: the projected life expectancy of a baby born in 2019 had decreased since the previous estimate (which was done in 2015) from 91.6 to 89.1 and the projected chance of a baby born in 2043 reaching the age of 100 had been slashed from 34.1% to 23.4%. A second much-discussed finding was the substantial inequality in the projected life expectancy of girls and boys, with 2 boys born in 2019 projected to live, on average, 2.6 years shorter than girls, and boys born in 2043 projected to have a 5.3% lower chance than girls of reaching 100.1 In this paper, I examine the role that the quality of such prospects, as well as the inequality in such prospects, should play in moral decision-making. I develop and defend an egalitarian view on which we have special reason to improve the prospects of those possible people whose expectations, conditional on existence, are worse than those of other people who have a chance of coming into existence. In Section 1, I argue that when deciding on prospective people's fates, it matters whether we are engaged in intrapersonal trade-offs or in interpersonal trade-offs. In Section 2, I propose a novel extension of a familiar pluralist egalitarian view. I argue that this novel view coheres with egalitarian ideals and adequately handles both types of trade-off. In Section 3, I consider and reject the claim, advanced by Jake Nebel, that this view can select an alternative which is guaranteed to generate worse outcomes than another feasible alternative. In Section 4, I consider Nebel's rival non-egalitarian view and argue that it fails to respect the difference between intraand interpersonal trade-offs.2 I offer my conclusions in Section 5. Before proceeding, let me mention some basic assumptions of the analysis. The theory I develop is designed for so-called "same actual number, variable identity" cases, in which a fixed number of people will exist, but the identities of these people may vary. I do so in order to extend familiar theories of distributive morality (which usually deal only with "same actual number, fixed-identity" cases) by one step into a relatively novel area of application 1 James Gallagher, "Child life expectancy projections cut by years." BBC News website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50631220 [last accessed on 28 May, 2020]. 2 Jake Nebel, "Priority, Not Equality, for Possible People," Ethics 127 (2017): 896-911. 3 without (as yet) dealing with the well-known challenges of variable actual number population ethics.3 (The proposed theory does, however, cover cases in which the number of people who have a chance of coming into existence varies, even though the number of people who will end up existing does not.) Moreover, I shall focus on the distribution of possible benefits rather than harms and on decisions about possible lives that would be "worth living" in the sense that each possible person's well-being level, if they came into existence, would make their life better for them than never existing.4 The reason for doing so is that, plausibly, different principles apply to the distribution of benefits than to the distribution of harms and different principles may govern bringing people into existence with good lives than with awful lives.5 Moreover, in line with standard discussions in welfare economics and health economics, I shall assume a cardinal, interpersonally comparable measure of well-being derived from idealized preferences satisfying the von NeumannMorgenstern axioms along with what is known as the Bernoulli axiom.6 On this measure, a 3 For a classic statement of the challenges posed by variable-number population ethics, see Gustaf Arrhenius, "An Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies," Economics and Philosophy 16.2 (2000): 247–266. 4 It may seem that such comparatives do not make sense. John Broome argues, for example, that if living with a high level of well-being is better for a person than never existing, then it follows that their never existing would be worse for them. But the latter, he claims, is an absurdity, since nothing can be better or worse for a person who never exists. (See Broome, Ethics out of Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 186.) However, this alleged absurdity does not follow. A relation between a person, a state in which this person leads a good life, and state in which this person never exists holds only if all three relata exist. Therefore, it does not follow from the fact that it is good for a person to exist at a high level of well-being that never existing would be worse for them, since in the latter case one of the relata would have been absent. (See Gustaf Arrhenius and Wlodek Rabinowicz, "The Value of Existence," in The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, ed. Iwao Hirose and Jonas Olson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 424-44.) 5 See Jan Narveson, "Utilitarianism and New Generations," Mind 76 (1967), pp. 62–72; Jeff McMahan, "Problems of Population Theory," Ethics 92 (1981), pp. 96-127; and Johann Frick, "Conditional Reasons and the Procreation Asymmetry," Philosophical Perspectives: Ethics (forthcoming). These limitations mean that I do not consider objections to the proposed egalitarian view advanced in Toby Handfield, "Egalitarianism about Expected Utility," Ethics 128 (2018): 603-11. For the principal criticisms Handfield offers concern cases with variable populations and/or quality of life so low that it would have been better for the person never to exist. These fall outside of the purview of this article. 6 Such a measure is commonplace in welfare economics; it is, for example, the basis of the "standard gamble" method of establishing health-related well-being in health economics (see Greg Bognar and Iwao Hirose, The Ethics of Health Care Rationing: An Introduction. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014, chap. 2 and Matthew Adler, Measuring Social Welfare: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, chap. 2 and appendix D). This measure is also assumed by Nebel. 4 prospect has higher expected well-being for a person just in case it would be preferred for that person's sake after rational reflection with relevant knowledge while considering only the person's self-interest. One prospect has the same expected well-being as another for a person if and only if, upon such reflection, one would be indifferent between the two prospects.7 Finally, in line with orthodox decision theory, I assume that a moral decisionmaker should choose the alternative with the greatest expected moral value. 1. The moral difference between intraand interpersonal trade-offs. A foundational idea of the literature on distributive justice from at least the 1960s onwards is that a person's life has a unity that a mere collection of individuals lacks. This is taken to imply that distributive principles governing trade-offs between various interests of a single individual, or between alternate possible futures of the same individual, differ in key respects from principles governing trade-offs between distinct individuals' well-being.8 The unity of an individual's life gives us reason to make intrapersonal trade-offs with an eye to simply maximize this individual's well-being, as prudence dictates. The separateness of persons requires that when people's interest conflict, we give greater weight to the interests of those who are worse off than others. To illustrate the moral significance of this 7 In this assessment of a person's prospects from the perspective of self-interest, I set aside any interest they may have in fair distribution. I do so in order to clearly separate questions of a person's wellbeing from questions of fair distribution. 8 For classic statements of this idea, see David Gauthier, Practical Reasoning. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 121-7; John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 234; and Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 138. For an illuminating discussion of the history of this idea, which stretches back to the 18th century, see the Introduction in Bastian Steuwer, One-by-One: Moral Theory for Separate Persons. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2020. 5 difference for cases involving possible future people, consider the following case, which contains two contrasting scenarios.9 Future Child 1. Through in-vitro fertilization, a child will be born to a woman who is a stranger to us. The prospective mother will develop a condition that will not affect her well-being. But this condition will, if untreated, cause her child to develop an impairment that will manifest in early adulthood10 and cause it to have a merely tolerable quality of life (a well-being level of 30). The mother's condition comes in two types, type 1 and type 2. The type she will develop is independent of our actions. Moreover, these types are equally likely and equally severe in their impacts on her child. We are in a position to improve the prospects of her child in one of two ways. Option A involves developing a treatment which will fully cure the child's impairment just in case the mother develops type 1 of the condition, in which case the child will have an excellent life (a well-being of 90). Unfortunately, this treatment will be ineffective in case the mother develops type 2. Option B involves developing a treatment that is equally, and partially, effective at limiting the impact of both types of the condition. It will ensure that the child's well-being will be improved to a moderate level, which lies 9 A set of contrasting scenarios of this kind was first discussed in Michael Otsuka, "Prioritarianism and the Separateness of Persons," Utilitas 24: 365–380, on pp. 369-70. 10 The assumption that we are morally motivated strangers (rather than intimates or agents of the people involved) is meant to ensure that we are motivated by impartial distributive ethics alone. The assumption that the health condition in question will manifest only in adulthood is meant to ensure that in the Intrapersonal Scenario, the individual's identity is constant across the individual's different potential futures under consideration. 6 just below the mid-point between an excellent life and a merely tolerable life (a well-being of 60 – c, with c positive and small). In the Intrapersonal Scenario, precisely one embryo will be implanted and the identity of the child who will be born (Chad) is fixed. This scenario is depicted in the top section of Table 1. In the Interpersonal Scenario, two embryos will be implanted, although only one will develop into a child. The identity of the child who will be born is independent of our choice and is equally likely to be Dylan, who will be born if the mother develops type 1; and Ed, who will be born if the mother develops type 2. This scenario is depicted in the bottom section of Table 1. (The numbers in brackets are the probabilities of the two possible states of the world, rationally calculated by us given the available evidence. A possible person's non-existence in a given state of the world is depicted by the symbol "--".) 7 Table 1. Final well-being in Future Child 1 Intrapersonal Scenario Alternative State of the world Mother develops type 1 (0.5) Mother develops type 2 (0.5) A Chad 90 30 B Chad 60 – c 60 – c Interpersonal Scenario Alternative State of the world Mother develops type 1 (0.5) Mother develops type 2 (0.5) A Dylan Ed 90 -- -

B Dylan Ed 60 – c -- -60 – c Taking each scenario separately, and considering only the well-being of the possible people in this scenario (and not how their well-being relates to that of others, the mother and ourselves included), should we develop treatment A or B? In answering this question, it matters in which scenario we find ourselves. In the Intrapersonal Scenario, if we choose to develop the possible full cure (A), then it is a single person, Chad, who has both the "upside" opportunity of an excellent life and the 8 "downside" chance of a being left with a merely tolerable life. Moreover, this option maximizes Chad's expected well-being. Given our measure of well-being, it is the option that is most choiceworthy on Chad's behalf. By choosing this option, we will therefore do what, given the information available at the time, is in Chad's best interests; in other words, we will be acting for his sake. Moreover, insofar as we set aside the well-being of others, there appear to be no other morally relevant considerations that should prompt us to act contrary to Chad's interests. It follows that for every c > 0, we have decisive reason to choose A. By contrast, in the Interpersonal Scenario, if we pursue a potential cure, only one possible person, Dylan, stands to benefit. For, in this scenario, this cure will work only for the condition that will affect Dylan, but will be ineffective against the condition that would affect Ed. This means that, if Ed is born and the potential cure turns out to have been ineffective, we cannot offer a prudential justification to Ed for our choice. Instead, we can say only this: "We chose to develop the possible cure because this had a chance of providing a slightly greater additional benefit to Dylan, who might have been born instead." To this attempted justification, Ed could voice the following powerful reply: "Instead of exclusively promoting Dylan's interests, you could have promoted our interests equally. Equal consideration of our interests is inconsistent with your setting aside all potential benefits for Dylan's possible arrival, when instead you could have divided nearly the same amount of possible benefits equally between us." These considerations should, I submit, prompt us to tolerate at least a small loss of expected total well-being to improve the two potential people's prospects to an equal extent. I shall now develop a novel view which accounts for both this judgment in the Interpersonal 9 Scenario and the contrasting purely prudential moral reasoning in the Intrapersonal Scenario. 2. Egalitarianism for Prospective People On a well-known pluralist egalitarian view, equal concern for each person demands that we aim to (a) promote individuals' final and prospective well-being; and (b) reduce unfair inequalities in final well-being and prospective well-being between co-existents.11 On this view, there is a presumption that inequalities in final well-being that are due to brute luck are unfair.12 (In all cases I consider here, individuals' well-being is, for them, a matter of brute luck and there are no reasons to override the presumptive unfairness of brute luck inequality. Fairness therefore requires equality in final well-being.) Inequality in prospects between co-existents matters as well, because it is less unfair if a given level of inequality in final well-being between two individuals results from both having had an equal chance at being advantaged than when such inequality is the consequence of one individual simply being ensured this advantage.13 11 This form of egalitarianism is defended in Alex Voorhoeve and Marc Fleurbaey, "Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons," Utilitas 24 (2012): 381-98; Otsuka and Voorhoeve, "Equality versus Priority" in Serena Olsaretti, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 65-85; and Thomas Rowe and Voorhoeve, "Egalitarianism under Severe Uncertainty," Philosophy & Public Affairs 46.3 (2018): 239-68. It draws on the defences of brute luck equality and chance equality cited in notes 12 and 13 (CHECK #). In welfare economics, the first defence of a form of egalitarianism of this kind I know of is Alistair Ulph, "The Role of Ex Ante and Ex Post Decisions in the Valuation of a Life," Journal of Public Economics 18 (1982): 265-76, pp. 268-9. 12 G. A. Cohen, "On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice," Ethics 99 (1989): 906–44; and Larry Temkin, Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). For recent defences, see Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Luck Egalitarianism. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and Shlomi Segall, "Incas and Aliens: The Truth in Telic Egalitarianism," Economics and Philosophy 32 (2016): 1–19. 13 John Broome, "Fairness," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 91 (1990): 87–101; Richard Arneson, "Postscript to 'Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare,'" in Equality: Selected Readings, ed. Louis Pojman and Robert Westmoreland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 238–41; Larry Temkin, "Inequality: A Complex, Individualistic, and Comparative Notion," Philosophical Issues, 11 (2001): 327-53. For an argument that this concern with the fairness of chances is central to ensuring that egalitarianism respects the difference between the unity of the individual and the separateness of persons, see Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey, "Egalitarianism". 10 This egalitarian view can explain the judgment in our Intrapersonal Scenario. Insofar as we consider Chad's prospects in isolation from how anyone else fares, inequality is not at issue. The only remaining imperative is then to maximize the value of his prospects, which requires choosing A. However, it cannot explain the proposed judgment in our Interpersonal Scenario.14 Since, in each possible outcome, there is only one person for us to consider, neither inequality in final well-being nor inequality in expected well-being between coexistents is at issue. There is, of course, the other pluralistic egalitarian imperative, to promote individuals' well-being. But it unclear how this should be understood in this case, in which two potential individuals' interests are in competition, but there is no inequality between co-existents. In order to arrive at the right recommendation, this form of egalitarianism therefore requires supplementation. One proposal has been put forward by Alex Voorhoeve and Marc Fleurbaey.15 Motivated by the idea that egalitarian concerns must be limited to how co-existents' prospects and fates compare, they propose a form of pluralist egalitarianism which incorporates the following non-egalitarian idea: it is more important to improve a person's prospects, conditional on their existence, the less valuable these prospects are, even if their prospects are not worse than anyone else's. Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey's view arrives at the correct verdicts in our scenarios. In the Intrapersonal Scenario, it mandates A because this maximizes Chad's expected well-being. In the Interpersonal Scenario, by contrast, for a sufficiently small c, it mandates B, since it holds that for c small enough, it is more important to improve the quality of a person's 14 This was first observed in Otsuka, "Prioritarianism," p. 370. 15 Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey, "Priority or Equality for Possible People?" Ethics 126 (2016): 929-54. 11 conditional prospects from 30 to 60 – c than to improve a person's conditional prospects from 60 – c to 90. Crucially, this is not on the grounds that choosing B would avoid, whereas choosing A would cause, objectionable inequality between Dylan's and Ed's conditional prospects. Instead, on their view, it is simply especially important to improve Ed's poor conditional prospects. I submit, however, that their proposal is based on too narrow a view of the scope of egalitarian concerns. It therefore fails to capture the essentially comparative reasons that, in Section 1, it was natural to imagine Ed putting forward, namely, that choosing A was incompatible with equal concern for each possible child, because it advanced Dylan's prospective interests only, when instead it was possible, at little cost, to have advanced both Dylan's and Ed's prospective interests equally. This reasoning can also be phrased in the following, less personal terms. Equal concern for the lives of children who, given our choices, have a chance of coming into existence requires that we adopt two broad aims: that whoever exists fares well, and that the world is equally well-prepared for the arrival of whoever comes into existence. In the Interpersonal Scenario, choosing A ensures that the two children who may come into existence have grossly unequal prospects. By contrast, B ensures that the two possible children have equal prospects, and it does so at only a small loss in total expected quality of life. In other words, A makes the world a much more welcoming place for one of the two children who may arrive, whereas B makes the world just as welcoming for any child who might arrive, at modest cost. Equal concern therefore requires that we choose B. Such reasoning is, I submit, a natural way of explaining what makes it wrong to choose A in the Interpersonal Scenario. It is also a more fitting extension of the pluralist egalitarian view 12 under consideration than Fleurbaey and Voorhoeve's non-egalitarian idea that an improvement in a person's prospects has diminishing marginal moral significance independently of how anyone else might fare. For it simply applies the egalitarian interpretation of equal concern-that it is important that people's lives go equally well-to anyone who, given our actions and knowledge, we believe has some positive probability of coming into existence. Like standard brute luck egalitarianism, this extension is motivated by the avoidance of unfairness. In the Interpersonal Case, it would be unfair if all possible benefits were set aside for Dylan, while no such unfairness would obtain if possible benefits were split equally between Dylan and Ed. And while this idea is of course distinct from the unfairness of some co-existents being less well-off than others, it is a straightforward application of the idea that unfairness also inheres in a difference in expected well-being, because such inequality amounts to one individual's interests, as we rationally assess them with the information available at the moment of decision, being advanced more than another's.16, 17 One may ask why the individual's relevant interests are wholly determined by how well they would fare if they came into existence and not (at least in part) by their chance of coming 16 Here, I am disagreeing with Otsuka, "Prioritarianism," p. 370. 17 There is, however, one issue which does not arise when we consider inequality in expected well-being between co-existents: when we evaluate the badness of inequality in conditional prospects, we must consider the chance that the individuals in question will come into existence. To see why, suppose that we were to change the probabilities of the two states of the world in our Interpersonal Scenario so that chance of the mother developing type 1 (and therefore the chance of Dylan coming into existence) is very large and the chance of her developing type 2 (and therefore the chance of Ed coming into existence) is very small. In that case, the inequality in conditional life prospects that a choice of A would generate would seem less significant than in the scenario as it stands, in which each is equally likely to exist. When the mother will either have a child with an excellent life or a different child with a merely tolerable life, the inequality in their life prospects should be of greater concern when these possibilities are equally likely than when the first of these children is much more likely to come into existence. To put it differently: when only one of two possible people will exist, in order to eliminate a given amount of inequality in conditional expected well-being between them, it is reasonable to incur a higher cost in terms of expected total well-being when these individuals are equally likely to come into existence than when one is much more likely to come into existence than the other. I thank Susanne Burri for asking me to address this issue. 13 into existence. After all, we are supposing that the life they would lead would be good for them. Wouldn't it therefore be a matter of distributive concern to ensure that individuals have equally valuable prospects of existence? The following case shows why the answer to this question is 'no'.18 Future Child 2. The basic set-up is as in the Interpersonal Scenario in Future Child 1, with the following differences. The mother has a one-third chance of having type 1 and a two-thirds chance of acquiring type 2 of the condition. If she develops type 1, the child born will be Fred, and if she develops type 2 it will be George. We can either create a treatment that would deliver greater benefits to Fred and lesser benefits to George, or instead ensure that whoever is born will have a treatment for their impairment that ensures a moderately good life, whilst keeping expected total well-being constant. The degree d to which we skew the treatment in favour of Fred is up to us. This case is depicted in Table 2, with 0 ≤ d ≤ 30. 18 For further argument using a different scenario, see Case 6 in Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey, "Equality or Priority". 14 Table 2. Final well-being in Future Child 2. Alternative: choose d, with 0 ≤ d ≤ 30. State of the world Mother develops type 1 (0.33) Mother develops type 2 (0.67) Fred George 60 + d -- -60 – (d/2) If we choose d = 0, we ensure equality of conditional expected well-being. But we also generate substantial inequality in the value of prospects of coming into existence, since George is twice as likely to come into existence as Fred. As we increase d, we introduce inequality in conditional expected well-being, but reduce inequality in individuals' prospects of coming into existence, until we reach d = 30, which ensures equality in the value of prospects of existence, but generates substantial inequality in conditional expected wellbeing. Which d should we choose? I submit that answering this question does not require careful balancing of two opposing egalitarian concerns. Instead, it is entirely straightforward: we should simply set d = 0, and for very similar reasons adduced in support of choosing B in Future Child 1. It would be unconscionable to set aside the majority of potential benefits for Fred, when we could instead divide the very same amount of expected benefits equally. In short, I have proposed a form of pluralist egalitarianism concerned with improving people's lives and prospects, as well as with reducing inequality in the quality of their lives and prospects, with people's prospects being understood as their conditional expected wellbeing. 15 3. Does Equality for Prospective People Violate State-wise Dominance? I shall now consider an objection raised by Nebel against the aforementioned view put forward by Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey, which also challenges the more thoroughgoing egalitarianism advanced here.19 Consider the following case.20 Future Child 3. The basic set-up is as in the Interpersonal Scenario of Future Child 1, except that our options are different. Option A involves providing the prospective mother with a treatment that is exceedingly effective if she develops type 1 but that will have only a very minor positive effect if she develops type 2. Moreover, the treatment ensures that, if the mother develops type 1, Hal will be born and have an exceedingly excellent quality of life (a welfare of 90 + e, with e positive but small). If she develops type 2, Ian will be born and his quality of life will be just in excess of tolerable (a welfare of 30 + e). Option B involves providing a treatment that will ensure that Ian will be born. If his mother develops type 1, this option ensures that Ian will have an excellent life; if she develops type 2, he will have a merely tolerable life. This case is represented in Table 3. 19 "Priority, not Equality," pp. 900-3. 20 My version simplifies Nebel's Zygotic Selection Case by fixing the probabilities of the states involved and limiting the discussion to two options. Neither of these simplifications makes a difference to the argument. I also eliminate the following distorting aspect. In Nebel's version, the inegalitarian option involves "doing nothing," whereas the option which eliminates inequality in conditional expected well-being carries a substantial risk of causing physical harm (and an associated loss in well-being) through an intervention which makes a person fare less well than they would have without our intervention. Since it is plausible that we have stringent duties not to impose a substantial risk of such harm, this biases his case against the proposed form of egalitarianism. My presentation avoids this bias by focusing solely on the possibility of improving a child's wellbeing over the non-intervention baseline. 16 Table 3. Final well-being in Future Child 3 Alternative State of the world Mother develops type 1 (0.5) Mother develops type 2 (0.5) A Hal Ian 90 + e -- -30 + e B Hal Ian -

It is noteworthy that A generates substantial inequality in conditional expected well-being between the two children who might come into existence, with one potential child with excellent prospects and another with poor prospects, whereas B involves no such inequality, since the child who will be born will have moderately good prospects. For some, sufficiently small amount of "excess well-being" e, the egalitarian view proposed here therefore requires choosing B. In contrast, Nebel argues as follows that we should choose A for any e > 0.21 If the mother develops type 1, A leads to a better outcome than B, because Hal would have higher final well-being than Ian would have. If the mother develops type 2, A leads to a better outcome than B, because it is better for Ian. Nebel then appeals to state-wise dominance, which holds that if an alternative has a superior outcome no matter which state of the world 21 ibid., pp. 901-903. 17 materializes, then that alternative is better. He concludes that A is better than B, and should be chosen. In reply, the proposed egalitarian view does not violate state-wise dominance. For, on this view, the quality of an outcome is not wholly determined by the distribution of final wellbeing. Instead, it is determined by the final well-being in that outcome and the prospects enjoyed by both potential individuals at the time of decision. These prospects contribute to the value of the outcome, since they determine how potential individuals' prospective interests were served at the moment of decision, and therefore how fair this decision was. For this reason, if e is sufficiently small, our egalitarian view can judge the outcome of A if the mother develops type 2 to be worse than the outcome of B in that state of the world. The reason is that choosing A gave Ian prospects that were both poor and worse than the prospects of the other child whose existence our choice made possible. Both these factors depress the value of the outcome in which Ian is born. In contrast, choosing B gave Ian moderately good prospects, which contributes positively to the value of the outcome even when Ian's final well-being is low. It is important to note that the proposed egalitarian view need not claim that the outcome of B if the mother develops type 2 is better for Ian than the outcome of A in this circumstance. After all, in the former instance, Ian ends up with a marginally lower level of final well-being. Instead, it can appeal simply to the fact that it is better, because less unfair, that there is no inequality in prospects between potential children. In this respect, it is akin to standard egalitarian views that care about the distribution of chances.22 Consider, for 22 Here, I follow John Broome, Weighing Goods (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pp. 111-15 and H. Orri Stefansson, "Fair Chance and Modal Consequentialism," Economics and Philosophy 31 (2015): 371-95. 18 example, a variant on the classic case in which two equally-situated individuals have only a few weeks to live unless they receive a kidney transplant. We have only one kidney available, which we can either give outright to the first of them, or instead assign using a randomizing device which gives each an equal chance of receiving the kidney. Suppose that both patients are in pain, that effective pain relief can be given only once we know whether a patient is about to receive a kidney (the kind of relief prescribed will depend on whether they are about to have a transplant), and that using the randomizing device costs time. Suppose further that we decide to use the randomizing device. If the second patient were to lose out in the random draw, in terms of final well-being, both patients may be worse off than if the kidney had been assigned directly to the first patient. After all, the first patient will simply have had more time in pain before receiving the kidney, and the second patient will also have spent more time in pain and still not have the kidney.23 Nonetheless, the outcome of the random assignment is clearly better in one respect, and therefore possibly better overall, because it results from a fairer distribution of chances. These claims about how the value of a person's chances can affect the moral value of outcomes fit with how these chances figure in interpersonal justification. In our kidney case, if the second patient loses out in the random assignment, the fact that we gave them a fair chance will be a good explanation to them for what we've done, including the extra pain they have suffered. Similarly, in Future Child 3, a child's life prospects are part of what we can appeal to in justifying our actions to them. As David Wasserman notes in a well-known discussion of the ethics of having children, a person's life prospects at the moment of their creation commonly figure in our justification to them of bringing them into existence. 23 Recall that, as outlined in n. 7 (CHECK #) I exclude an individual's interest in fair distribution from their measure of final well-being. 19 Wasserman writes: "[T]he reasons that [we] can offer the child for having brought her into a difficult and dangerous world (...) must (...) concern her own expected good." 24 Pursuing this thought, Wasserman points out that to a child who had reasonably good life prospects but who ends up having a difficult life (though one that is still worth living), we can offer the fact that their life prospects were reasonably good as a justification for making their existence more likely.25 It is noteworthy that, in Future Child 3, we could offer a justification along these lines to Ian for choosing B, but we could not offer such a justification to him for choosing A. In sum, contrary to Nebel, in Future Child 3, the fact that that A condemns Ian, should he be born, to a quality of life that is both meagre and inferior to the prospects of the other child we made possible, while B gives Ian reasonably good life prospects and eliminates inequality in conditional life prospects, gives us a good reason to choose B. So long as the cost in final well-being of choosing B is small, this reason may well be decisive.26 24 David Benatar and David Wasserman. Debating Procreation. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 142. 25 Ibid., p. 142. 26 Nebel offers the following further argument using a twist on Future Child 3. Suppose that, in fact, the woman in question will have twins. The identity of the second child is fixed (let us call him Jack) and the two treatments under consideration will affect his well-being in the same way: if his mother develops type 1, he will have a well-being of 90 + e, and if his mother develops type 2, he will have a well-being of 30 + e (as before, e is positive but small). In other respects, A and B are the same as in Future Child 3 (so this variant amounts to adding an individual, Jack, to each alternative in that table, with Jack's well-being always 90 + e if the mother has type 1 and always 30 + e if it is type 2). Nebel argues that this case demonstrates further problems for the proposed form of egalitarianism. For, he notes, A will ensure perfect equality of outcome (either both boys will have exceedingly excellent quality of life, or both will have a tad above tolerable quality of life), whereas B will generate a small degree of inequality of outcome (since Jack will always be slightly better off than Ian). But, for reasons already adduced, egalitarianism for possible people holds there is reason to choose B. Nebel apparently finds it strange that one might tolerate a bit of outcome inequality in order to greatly reduce inequality in life chances. There is, however, nothing peculiar in this judgment. Pluralist egalitarians care about inequality in final well-being and inequality in chances, and may therefore allow a slight increase in the former to greatly reduce the latter. See Ulph, "The Role of Ex Ante and Ex Post", pp. 268-9; Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey, "Equality or Priority", pp. 937-8. 20 4. Against Person-Affecting Prioritarianism Nebel also proposes the following rival view, which is of independent interest. "Person-Affecting Prioritarianism: (i) A person has a complaint against our choice if [and only if] both (a) there is some alternative we could have chosen under which she would have fared better [given the realized state of the world] and (b) our choice fails to maximize her expected well-being, conditional on her existence. (ii) The strength of a person's complaint against a choice is determined by the extent to which it leaves her worse off than she would have been otherwise, and by how well off she is. A person's complaint is stronger the worse off she is. (iii) We ought to choose the prospect against which people would have the weakest complaints, discounted by the probability that those complaints arise. If people would have no (or minimally weak) complaints against more than one prospect, then we ought to choose the impartially best [that is, the prospect with greatest expected moral value] of those."27 The motivation for this view is that we have important reasons to attend to each individual's valid claims to have their interests promoted and to satisfy the most morally significant collection of these claims. Furthermore, individuals have a claim against a choice we have made if and only if a different action we could have taken would have been better for them both (a) as things actually turned out and (b) in terms of their life prospects. These reasons 27 "Priority, Not Equality", pp. 907-908. Additions in square brackets are mine; the context of Nebel's discussion suggests them, and Nebel confirmed in conversation that these are part of his view. 21 to attend to people's claims may prompt us to depart from what generates the best consequences; but in the absence of these reasons, we should simply do what generates the best consequences. Moreover, as outlined above, Nebel believes that inequalities in conditional prospects between people who will not co-exist do not affect the value of consequences. Person-Affecting Prioritarianism agrees with the proposed form of egalitarianism in both scenarios of Future Child 1. On this view, in the Intrapersonal Scenario, Chad has no complaint against a choice of A, since that maximizes his expected well-being. But Chad would, if his mother develops type 1, have a complaint against a choice of B. The view therefore holds that we ought to choose A. In contrast, in the Interpersonal Scenario, if the mother develops type 2, Ed will have a complaint against A, which, for c sufficiently small, will be stronger than Dylan's equally likely complaint against B, since the amount of wellbeing at stake for each is roughly equal and Ed's well-being would be much lower if we chose A. Nebel's view therefore holds that we ought to choose B.28 It is also easy to see that his view agrees with the proposed form of egalitarianism in Future Child 2. However, Person-Affecting Prioritarianism naturally arrives at differing verdicts in Future Child 3. It reasons as follows, for all e > 0. No one could have a complaint against a choice of A. For, if the mother develops type 1, Hal has no complaint since he has a life worth living and he would not have existed otherwise. And, if the mother develops type 2, Ian has no complaint since, in this state of the world, he is better off than if we had chosen B. Nor could anyone have a complaint against a choice of B. For B maximizes the conditional expected 28 "Priority, Not Equality", p. 909. 22 well-being of the only person who would then exist. Therefore, by clause (iii) of PersonAffecting Prioritarianism, we ought to choose the alternative that maximizes consequential value. According to Nebel, because neither alternative involves any inequality between coexistents, this means we should simply choose whatever maximizes expected total utility, which is A.29 In the previous section, I explained the reasons for arriving at a different judgment in Future Child 3. To heighten the contrast between our views, I shall now consider another case which Nebel uses to illustrate his view.30 Future Child 4: This case is exactly like the Interpersonal Scenario of Future Child 1, with the following exception: the treatments determine in which the state of the world each potential person will develop into a child. If we provide treatment A, then Dylan will be born (and have an excellent quality of life) just in case the mother develops type 1, and Ed will be born (and have a tolerable quality of life) just in case she develops type 2. If we provide treatment B, then Ed will be born (and have a moderately good quality of life) just in case the mother develops type 1, and Dylan will be born (and have a moderately good quality of life) just in case the mother develops type 2. This case is depicted in Table 4. 29 "Priority, Not Equality", p. 909. 30 "Priority, Not Equality", pp. 907-08. 23 Table 4. Final Well-being in Future Child 4. Alternative State of the world Mother develops type 1 (0.5) Mother develops type 2(0.5) A Dylan Ed 90 -- -

B Dylan Ed -60 – c 60 – c -- Nebel argues as follows that, in this case, no one could have complaints against any of the alternatives. No matter what we choose, the person who comes into existence has a life worth living. Moreover, had we chosen otherwise, he would never have existed. By clause (iii) of Person-Affecting Prioritarianism, we ought therefore to maximize consequential value. Because neither alternative involves inequality between co-existents, we should choose whatever maximizes expected total well-being, which is A.31 Nebel endorses this implication of his view, but I submit that his form of prioritarianism arrives at the wrong verdict in this case. For, contrary to Nebel, one can voice a complaint on Ed's behalf against a choice of A in Future Child 4 which is akin to Ed's complaint against a choice of A in the Interpersonal Scenario of Future Child 1. This complaint is, simply, that when the arrival of each was equally likely, a choice of A set aside all potential benefits for one of the two possible children, when it was instead possible to divide these benefits 31 "Priority, Not Equality", pp. 907-08. 24 equally at little cost. This complaint is not vitiated by the fact that in Future Child 4, if we choose A and Ed comes into existence, he will have a life worth living that he would not have had if we had chosen otherwise. For this complaint is about how we acted to promote Dylan's and Ed's prospective interests as rationally perceived at the moment of decision and not about what ended up happening. Moreover, just as in Future Child 1, merely replying that we chose A in order to secure greater aggregate expected advantage is inadequate, precisely because it fails to acknowledge the fact that this is a case in which, at the moment of decision, prospective persons' interests conflict. Indeed, since it requires choosing A in Future Child 4 for all c > 0, Nebel's view treats this case of conflicting interests just like the Intrapersonal Scenario of Future Child 1. It thereby fails to follow a primary dictum of distributive morality, which is to track the difference between intraand interpersonal tradeoffs. In contrast, our proposed form of egalitarianism assimilates Future Child 4 to the Interpersonal Scenario of Future Child 1. It therefore captures the fact that these are both cases in which we must balance the interests of two equally likely future individuals. Equal consideration of these conflicting interests requires arranging benefits to these possible people's equal expected advantage when the cost of doing so is small. It requires, in other words, that rather than giving one potential child excellent conditional prospects and leaving the other with barely tolerable life chances, we ensure that both potential children have moderately good conditional prospects. 25 5. Conclusion The quality of possible future people's life prospects is a matter of common concern. So too, it seems to me, are inequalities in these prospects. For example, a future UK parent who is planning to have only one child, as well as anyone concerned with that future child's wellbeing, can rightly regret that this child's life expectancy will be lower if they are born a boy than if they are born a girl, and lower if they are born with a genetically-caused impairment than if they are born a different person without such an impairment. I have articulated and defended a form of egalitarianism which reflects these concerns. The proposed view holds that we have reason to improve the life prospects of anyone who, given our actions, has a chance of coming into existence and reason to eliminate inequalities in such prospects. It holds, in other words, that we recognize the value of each prospective person and the distinctiveness of their lives by striving to make the world welcoming to whoever might arrive, and equally so. Acknowledgements Work on this paper was supported through the Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting's research project "Decision Support for Universal Health Coverage," funded by NORAD grant RAF-18/0009. This paper was presented at the Australian National University, Duke University, Groningen University, and the London School of Economics. I am grateful to those present and to Susanne Burri, Marc Fleurbaey, Kirsten Mann, Jake Nebel, and Bastian Steuwer for comments or discussion.