scholarly journals Population axiology and the possibility of a fourth category of absolute value

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-110
Author(s):  
Johan E. Gustafsson
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Absolute Value ◽  
Critical Range ◽  
Population Axiology

AbstractCritical-Range Utilitarianism is a variant of Total Utilitarianism which can avoid both the Repugnant Conclusion and the Sadistic Conclusion in population ethics. Yet Standard Critical-Range Utilitarianism entails the Weak Sadistic Conclusion, that is, it entails that each population consisting of lives at a bad well-being level is not worse than some population consisting of lives at a good well-being level. In this paper, I defend a version of Critical-Range Utilitarianism which does not entail the Weak Sadistic Conclusion. This is made possible by what I call ‘undistinguishedness’, a fourth category of absolute value in addition to goodness, badness, and neutrality.

Feldman's Desert-Adjusted Utilitarianism and Population Ethics

Utilitas ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustaf Arrhenius
Keyword(s):  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Fred Feldman ◽  
Population Axiology

Fred Feldman has proposed a desert-adjusted version of utilitarianism, ‘justicism’, as a plausible population axiology. Among other things, he claims that justicism avoids Derek Parfit's ‘repugnant conclusion’. This paper explains the theory and tries to straighten out some of its ambiguities. Moreover, it is shown that it is not clear whether justicism avoids the repugnant conclusion and that it is has other counter-intuitive implications. It is concluded that justicism is not convincing as a population axiology.

scholarly journals Nondeterminacy and Population Ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Herlitz
Keyword(s):  
General View ◽  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Partial Orderings ◽  
Population Axiology ◽  
Plausible Theory ◽  
Mere Addition ◽  
Mere Addition Paradox ◽  
The Continuum ◽  
Formal Constraints

This paper synthesizes a general view out of Derek Parfit’s last views on how to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion and presents the general features of a plausible theory of population ethics based on Parfit’s suggestions. The paper argues that a plausible population axiology provides only partial orderings and implies that some outcomes are nondeterminate in their ranking. The paper shows, first, how the combination of what Parfit calls “imprecise equality” and the “Wide Dual Person-Affecting Principle” allows one to avoid both the Continuum Argument and the Improved Mere Addition Paradox. Second, the paper shows how this is enough to in principle also refute Gustaf Arrhenius’s impossibility theorems. Third, the paper suggests that a plausible population axiology must allow for nondeterminacy, that whatever the substance of the axiology is, it can only provide partial orderings of outcomes, and that if we revise Arrhenius’s adequacy conditions these can condition what a satisfactory population axiology looks like. Finally, the paper illustrates how one can apply normative theories that allow for nondeterminacy and also infer formal constraints on the theories in light of the consequences of their application.

Why We Ought to Accept the Repugnant Conclusion

Utilitas ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjorn Tannsjo
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Derek Parfit ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Hedonistic Utilitarianism ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
Very High

Derek Parfit has famously pointed out that ‘total’ utilitarian views, such as classical hedonistic utilitarianism, lead to the conclusion that, to each population of quite happy persons there corresponds a more extensive population with people living lives just worth living, which is (on the whole) better. In particular, for any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better, even though its members have lives that are barely worth living. This world is better if the sum total of well-being is great enough, and it is great enough if only enough sentient beings inhabit it. This conclusion has been considered by Parfit and others to be ‘repugnant’.

Does Climate Change Policy Depend Importantly on Population Ethics?

2021 ◽  
pp. 111-136
Author(s):  
Gustaf Arrhenius ◽  
Mark Budolfson ◽  
Dean Spears
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Impossibility Results ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Population Axiology

Choosing a policy response to climate change seems to demand a population axiology. A formal literature involving impossibility theorems has demonstrated that all possible approaches to population axiology have one or more seemingly counterintuitive implications. This leads to the worry that because axiological theory is radically unresolved, this theoretical ignorance implies serious practical ignorance about what climate policies to pursue. This chapter offers two deflationary responses to this worry. First, it may be that given the actual facts of climate change, all axiologies agree on a particular policy response. In this case, there would be a clear dominance conclusion, and the puzzles of axiology would be practically irrelevant (albeit still theoretically challenging). Second, despite the impossibility results, the authors prove the possibility of axiologies that satisfy bounded versions of all of the desiderata from the population axiology literature, which may be all that is needed for policy evaluation.

scholarly journals Millian Superiorities and the Repugnant Conclusion

Utilitas ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
KARSTEN KLINT JENSEN
Keyword(s):  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
Population Ethics

James Griffin has considered a form of superiority in value that is weaker than lexical priority as a possible remedy to the Repugnant Conclusion. In this article, I demonstrate that, in a context where value is additive, this weaker form collapses into the stronger form of superiority. And in a context where value is non-additive, weak superiority does not amount to a radical value difference at all. These results are applied on one of Larry Temkin's cases against transitivity. I demonstrate that Temkin appeals to two conflicting notions of aggregation. I then spell out the consequences of these results for different interpretations of Griffin's suggestion regarding population ethics. None of them comes out very successful, but perhaps they nevertheless retain some interest.

Towards a Global Hedonism

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-64
Author(s):  
Roger Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Lower Order ◽  
General Position ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Basic Category ◽  
Absolute Value ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Value

This chapter argues that, of all alleged values of any kind, only pleasure is of ultimate axiological significance. It begins with the suggestion that absolute value—the value some item has through possessing a lower-order evaluative property that makes the world in which it is instantiated good—is foundational. Pleasantness is characterized as a basic category of phenomenal consciousness, and the charge of reductionism against hedonism based on this conception is refuted. Defences of hedonism against various forms of objection that it is counter-intuitive are modelled on an analogy with defences of consequentialism, and the general position is then applied to moral, aesthetic, and epistemic value. It is claimed that those attracted by the parsimony and elegance of welfarism (the view that the fundamental value is well-being) might find these qualities within hedonism in particular.

Research Frontiers

2019 ◽  
pp. 235-258
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Adler
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Economic Literature ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
Variable Population ◽  
Ethical Significance ◽  
Research Frontiers ◽  
Fixed Population

This chapter discusses how the SWF framework can be generalized to accommodate variable-population cases and differentiated individual responsibility. The framework, as presented in earlier chapters, assumes a fixed-population setup (the very same individuals exist in all outcomes). Conversely, a variable-population setup allows for individuals who exist in some outcomes but not others. Extending the SWF framework to this case means grappling with the philosophical literature on population ethics—specifically, grappling with the ethical significance of non-identity and deciding how to make ethical comparisons between outcomes with different total population sizes. Earlier chapters also focus solely on the pattern of well-being in outcomes—ignoring that two individuals who are at the same well-being level may be differentially responsible for their condition and thus have unequal ethical claims to a well-being improvement. The economic literature on equality of opportunity (EOp) provides a structure for generalizing the SWF framework to reflect differentiated responsibility.

A dilemma for lexical and Archimedean views in population axiology

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Elliott Thornley
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
Population Axiology ◽  
Better Than

Abstract Lexical views in population axiology can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion without violating Transitivity or Separability. However, they imply a dilemma: either some good life is better than any number of slightly worse lives, or else the ‘at least as good as’ relation on populations is radically incomplete. In this paper, I argue that Archimedean views face an analogous dilemma. I thus conclude that the lexical dilemma gives us little reason to prefer Archimedean views. Even if we give up on lexicality, problems of the same kind remain.

scholarly journals What Should We Agree on about the Repugnant Conclusion?

Utilitas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphane Zuber ◽  
Nikhil Venkatesh ◽  
Torbjörn Tännsjö ◽  
Christian Tarsney ◽  
H. Orri Stefánsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
Original Formulation ◽  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Very High

The Repugnant Conclusion is an implication of some approaches to population ethics. It states, in Derek Parfit's original formulation, For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better, even though its members have lives that are barely worth living. (Parfit 1984: 388)

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