This paper sketches a theory of the reason-giving force of well-being that allows us to reconcile our intuitions about two of the most recalcitrant problem cases in population ethics: Jan Narveson’s Procreation Asymmetry and Derek Parfit’s Non-Identity Problem. I show that what has prevented philosophers from developing a theory that gives a satisfactory account of both these problems is their tacit commitment to a teleological conception of well-being, as something to be ‘promoted’. Replacing this picture with one according to which our reasons to confer well-being on people are conditional on their existence allows me to do better. It also enables us to understand some of the deep structural parallels between seemingly disparate normative phenomena such as procreating and promising. The resulting theory charts a middle way between the familiar dichotomy of narrow personaffecting theories and totalist or wide-person affecting theories in population ethics. 1. The Procreation Asymmetry Many of us hold pre-theoretical views about the morality of procreation that are, in an important sense, asymmetrical. Suppose you can foresee that a child you could create would live a life so full of uncompensated suffering as to be not worth living.1 Most would agree that – exceptional circumstances aside – it would constitute a serious moral wrong to bring this child into existence. That is, given a choice between Nobody: Create no new life and Misery: Create person A, with a life that is not worth living we believe that there is strong moral reason to choose Nobody over Misery. 1 More precisely, imagine that such a child would have a life that is, in Derek Parfit’s phrase, “worth not living”, since its life would be worse than a life spent in a permanent coma (which would also be not worth living). For stylistic reasons, I will continue to use the former locution. However, you may assume throughout that when I refer to a life as “not worth living”, this is also a life that is “worth not living”, in Parfit’s sense.

中文翻译：

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条件原因和生育不对称

这篇论文勾勒出一种关于幸福的原因赋予力的理论，它使我们能够调和我们对人口伦理中两个最顽固的问题案例的直觉：Jan Narveson 的生育不对称和 Derek Parfit 的非同一性问题。我表明，阻碍哲学家发展出对这两个问题给出令人满意的解释的理论的原因是他们对幸福的目的论概念的默契承诺，作为一种要“促进”的东西。根据我们赋予人们幸福的原因以他们的存在为条件的图片替换这张图片，我可以做得更好。它还使我们能够理解看似不同的规范现象（例如生育和有希望）之间的一些深层结构相似之处。由此产生的理论在人口伦理中熟悉的狭隘个人影响理论与极权主义或广义影响理论的二分法之间绘制了一条中间道路。1. 生育不对称 我们中的许多人都持有关于生育道德的前理论观点，在一个重要的意义上，这些观点是不对称的。假设您可以预见，您可以创造的一个孩子将过着充满无偿痛苦的生活，以至于不值得一活。1 大多数人都会同意——撇开特殊情况不谈——让这个孩子存在将构成严重的道德错误。也就是说，如果在没有人：不创造新生活和苦难：创造人 A 之间做出选择，我们相信有一个不值得过的生活，我们相信有强烈的道德理由选择没有人而不是苦难。1 更准确地说，想象一下，这样一个孩子的生活，用德里克·帕菲特的话说，“不值得过”，因为他的生活会比在永久性昏迷中度过的生活更糟糕（这也不值得过）。出于文体原因，我将继续使用以前的说法。然而，你可以自始至终假设，当我将一种生活称为“不值得过”时，这也是一种“不值得过”的生活，在帕菲特的意义上。