[adamisom]

I think you should answer your own questions - with the comment that if you don't think human life is instrinsically good, I'm really curious what the foundation of your ethics is, and if you think anything at all has value.

[kzrdude]

I think using human life as good is a good foundation for ethics. It doesn't follow that we need more humans from that alone.

[adamisom]

Good point.

To me it follows because the aggregation intuition seems right to me--human life good, more human lives more good--and to me things like 'the repugnant conclusion' mean only that more nuanced thinking in how you aggregate is required, but not that aggregation itself is inherently wrong.

I think our likely-common intuition that it's more tragic for an 8-year-old to die than an 80-year-old indicates that it's really hard to just deny that utilitarian aggregation is appropriate and required in ethics. I suppose it's possible to say "it's more tragic for the 8 year old to die only because of the social expectation that they don't, and thus the impact on their parents and society", but I just don't buy it; I think we all have the intuition it's more tragic for the child to die primarily because they're missing out on more of life than the elderly person.

[kzrdude]

I'll put myself at risk here and suggest that it's more tragic for the child to die because we feel empathy for the parents, who cannot bear to lose their child, or empathy in the sense of transferring the feeling to imagining our own children, if we have them, in the place of the dead child.

This is partly tied to social expectation about how close family feels about their children vs their parents.