Thank you for your responses both. Does anyone else have any views on the matter?

Hi Athena

Thank you for your response. I do wonder what influence being happy does for the amount of offspring people tend to have. E.g. do more happy people have less children?

Hi Terrapin

Thank you for replying! It's an issue I really struggle to get to grips with and unfortunately causes me (for some bizarre reason) a great deal of stress trying to figure it out.

Bump

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Hi all

Thanks for your responses! I understand most of the points raised and yes Dingo I am essentially applying the butterfly effect.

So if I were to assume that most actions we take could result in different people being born, how can we say that doing things to benefit the future offspring (such as training to be a doctor, teacher etc.) really benefits people in the future if it's just going to change who is born? Obviously it will help HOWEVER is born but then doesn't it raise the ethical question of whether that is better than depriving someone of life who would have been born otherwise if we did not undertake that specific action?

I hope this makes sense!

Many thanks

Luke

Bump

Thanks for getting back to me Pseudonym.

So with this in mind is it really an act of "good" that what we do today (i.e. helping others) when it is causing harm to those in the future?

Thanks for taking the time to answer this :)

Luke