Premature death

An argument I often use in my overall theodicy is that no possible world is the best possible world. While some are definitely worse while others are definitely better, there's a cut above which no single timeline, no one world history, maximizes all the second-order goods while eliminating all or most evils. And I often use the example of different children conceived in different world histories. 

A stock objection is the Epicurean principle. Those who never exist have nothing at stake. You can only exist to have something to lose.

But I've always found that terribly shortsighted. For instance, someone who dies at 40 instead of 60 misses out on an extra 20 years of experience. Someone to dies at 20 instead of 60 misses out on an extra 40 years of experience. We think it's tragic when someone dies at ten because they lost so much of their potential future. It's an a fortiori argument from the lesser to the greater. Missing out on more and more. 

Or take someone who's blind. That's a deprivation. Or someone who's deaf. What about someone both blind and deaf? That's a greater deprivation. Or someone with no sense of taste. Or Nathan Wuornos, the character in Haven who has no tactile sense. Three sensory deprivations amount to a greater loss than two. They are missing out on sensory opportunities. The more the worse. 

But how is the a fortiori argument suddenly nullified when we move it up to those who never exist, which is total loss of opportunity? That's the a fortiori argument taken to the max. How can an argument from the lesser to the greater be solid up to a point, but peter out when it rises from the greater to the greatest? The principle involves a continuum. The force of the principle doesn't cease at the extreme end of the continuum. Rather, that's the limiting case. Other examples implicitly work back from that benchmark.