The concept of harm

[inator]

True, but someone's ability to deal with external influences has nothing to do with my query of where/how a consequentialist should determine the cutoff point at which a life is worth living or not. My question dealt more with the end result.

I see. Life has as much value as our subjective experience of it gives it value, it would probably be impossible to find a precise metric. Respecting a person's declared will to live and taking that as the closest to the truth as we can get seems like a common sense answer.

[inator]

That would help avoid the thought experiment getting bogged down in existential issues.

Yes, it's an argument that would feel intuitively wrong to anyone. After some short thought it should become clear that the assertion that there was actually no harm done is wrong. Even though no actual interests were violated.

Who is Lily?
Even if Lily was mutilated after birth, she would not be the same person growing up with that mutilation as without it. Because the mutilated Lily and the unmutilated Lily are different people.

Everything that happens to us makes us who and what we are. Is it impossible to harm anybody, because it changes in some way who the person is and makes a person who otherwise wouldn't have existed? Like I said, nobody is even identical to his or herself over time.

In the grand scheme of things, sure. The moment of choosing to change or harm someone and affect the outcome should be irrelevant.
It could also be said that an intervention that changes someone's interests to an extreme degree actually kills that first person and causes another one to exist.
Still, individuals have some continuity in the perception of their own selves once they start having interests. Mutilated Lily might blame her mother for making things worse off for her, while selected for poor health Lily could not.

My point is that it's hard to make such assumptions about the negative value of such an untimely death.

It's as though I give you a toy you love, then almost immediately take it away. It's not always better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all; there's a certain duration of experience that makes it worth it. We can't assume it's always better to have lived a brief life than none at all.

Not always, no. But above a certain threshold, there should be some inverse relationship between the quality of the experience and the minimum duration that would make it worth it.
Unlike the child who will miss the toy after having it taken away, a good life, even a short one, can't be missed after losing it. The violation of the will to continue having it amounts to some negative value, but it's not the equivalent of the pain of missing it.
I can't pinpoint that margin that makes the experience worth it, but I suspect a few years of a pretty ok life are enough to outweigh the negative value of death for most of us.

[brimstoneSalad]

It could also be said that an intervention that changes someone's interests to an extreme degree actually kills that first person and causes another one to exist.

Right, I just went into this in another thread: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1737&start=110
And here, in the debunking Benatar thread: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2215#p23225

Still, individuals have some continuity in the perception of their own selves once they start having interests.

I'm not sure if that in and of itself is valuable. Some people think they're Abraham Lincoln, Elvis, or Jesus. Are we talking about the feeling of suffering this existential crisis may create?

Mutilated Lily might blame her mother for making things worse off for her, while selected for poor health Lily could not.

And Mutilated Taoist Lily might not blame anybody, and would be at peace with her mutilation.
Is the issue the additional suffering and violations of interest and conflict she feels because of blaming her mother and the consequences of it creating stress in the relationship?
I could see that as being a subtle difference. But the difference is not rational, and it seems to be on the order of magnitude of homosexuality being harmful to the parents because they don't like it. It's not something that I think should factor strongly into the moral calculus, because it's a bad tendency that needs to be broken and is overwhelmed by the good of breaking it (just like identifying with disability; like those in the deaf community who accuse Cochlear implants as being a tool of genocide).

But above a certain threshold, there should be some inverse relationship between the quality of the experience and the minimum duration that would make it worth it.

I would say it probably has something to do with fulfilment, but yes, that's probably about right.

Unlike the child who will miss the toy after having it taken away,

I see that missing or suffering as a side effect of the interest being violated. The child is upset because of the wrong done to him. That suffering is something he's causing himself when he could not care instead; it's the manifestation of the violated interest. I don't see that in itself as an issue, and such a concern would seem to amount to double counting.

The same way, I don't really see the grief we feel after losing a loved one as an issue (until the person identifies it as one and wishes to not experience it anymore): it's a suffering people usually want to feel, because to feel it validates the interest and love in the loved one. To not feel it is to not care, to be dull and without emotion. The harm is done in the violation of the interest, not side effect of feeling that violation.

So, I disagree that this is a relevant distinction in anything but a hedonistic framework:

a good life, even a short one, can't be missed after losing it. The violation of the will to continue having it amounts to some negative value, but it's not the equivalent of the pain of missing it.

The violation of the will is the harm. The pain of missing it is one we choose because we care about that violation.

I'm equally concerned about a loved one being harmed whether I know about it or not.

I can't pinpoint that margin that makes the experience worth it, but I suspect a few years of a pretty ok life are enough to outweigh the negative value of death for most of us.

It's hard to say. I would look for something that resembles a fulfilling life, whatever that means to the average person. I don't think we can or should measure that in terms of pain.