There seems to be some struggle here with defining u0 in a way that intuitively represents morality, so I'll take a jab at it. As I see it, u0 can be viewed as "the utlity debt of creating a life", that is to say the amount of utility a person has to generate over the course of their lifetime in order to morally justify their existence (with all of its effects on the UDNTs of others already accounted for in their calculation), reasonably assuming they get to live a full t0 life.
An intuitive (albeit extreme) proof of concept: Imagine a fetus (i.e. a pre-person at a stage where hypothetically everyone agrees they... (read more)
There seems to be some struggle here with defining u0 in a way that intuitively represents morality, so I'll take a jab at it. As I see it, u0 can be viewed as "the utlity debt of creating a life", that is to say the amount of utility a person has to generate over the course of their lifetime in order to morally justify their existence (with all of its effects on the UDNTs of others already accounted for in their calculation), reasonably assuming they get to live a full t0 life.
An intuitive (albeit extreme) proof of concept: Imagine a fetus (i.e. a pre-person at a stage where hypothetically everyone agrees they... (read more)