Justice, Desert, and the Repugnant Conclusion

Utilitas ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Feldman

In Chapter 17 of his magnificent Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit asks what he describes as an ‘awesome question’: ‘How many people should there ever be?’ For a utilitarian like me, the answer seems simple: there should be however many people it takes to make the world best. Unfortunately, if I answer Parfit's awesome question in this way, I may sink myself in a quagmire of axiological confusion. In this paper, I first describe certain aspects of the quagmire. Then I introduce and explain some of the elements of a novel axiological view – ‘justicism’. Justicism is derived from some ideas originally suggested by Franz Brentano. It was developed in an effort to solve certain other problems confronting utilitarianism – problems explicitly about justice. I think, however, that as a sort of happy by-product, justicism also generates a plausible answer to Parfit's awesome question. This may come as a bit of surprise, since justicism is a form of totalism, and it is widely thought that no totalistic theory can provide a satisfactory answer to Parfit's question. After presenting and explaining my proposed solution, I address some objections.

Utilitas ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjorn Tannsjo

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’.


Author(s):  
Olivia Sultanescu ◽  
Claudine Verheggen

According to the sceptic Saul Kripke envisages in his celebrated book on Wittgenstein on rules and private language, there are no facts about an individual that determine what she means by any given expression. If there are no such facts, the question then is, what justifies the claim that she does use expressions meaningfully? Kripke’s answer, in a nutshell, is that she by and large uses her expressions in conformity with the linguistic standards of the community she belongs to. While Kripke’s sceptical problem has gripped philosophers for over three decades, few, if any, have been satisfied by his proposed solution, and many have struggled to come up with one of their own. The purpose of this paper is to show that a more satisfactory answer to Kripke’s challenge can be developed on the basis of Donald Davidson’s writings on triangulation, the idea of two individuals interacting simultaneously with each other and the world they share. It follows from the triangulation argument that the facts that can be regarded as determining meaning are irreducible. Yet, contra Kripke, they are not mysterious, for the argument does spell out what is needed for an individual’s expressions to be meaningful.


Utilitas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-397
Author(s):  
Torbjörn Tännsjö

AbstractTotal views imply what Derek Parfit has called ‘the repugnant conclusion’. There are several strategies aimed at debunking the intuition that this implication is repugnant. In particular, it goes away when we consider the principle of unrestricted instantiation, according to which any instantiation of the repugnant conclusion must appear repugnant if we should be warranted in relying on it as evidence against total theories. However, there are instantiations of the conclusion where it doesn't seem to be at all repugnant. Hence there is nothing repugnant about the repugnant conclusion as such. The faults with total views have nothing to do with large numbers or with the conclusion as such. It is possible, if you like, to correct these putative faults even if you adopt some total view (different from utilitarianism).


2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-68
Author(s):  
WILLIAM WATKIN

August 21, 1970A few sound[s] are embedded in the fog – a gull mewing, different far off fog horns – like unset polished stones laid out in cotton wool.Tuesday, March 5, 1985At six AM the heavy gray burns a heavier blue. Rain, water drops clinging to the balcony.There is an ethical consideration in James Schuyler's Diary. While we have spent the last fifty years grappling with the aesthetic problems of how to represent the unrepresentable, how to present the unpresentable, and how to signify the significant, little time has been spent considering the status of representations of the unremarkable. There is a whole history in American poetry and literature of validating the everyday, making it special, but Schuyler never really does that. Are things special just because we say so, or rather because we note them down? Do we name things into being, at least linguistic or literary being? The Diary asks these questions and in doing so it broaches the kind of postmodern ethical questions that one finds in the recent work of Lyotard, Derrida, and Nancy. These questions are significant not in the normal sense of the reasons for such interrogations or the answers expected, but rather because they represent a desire on the part of Schuyler to ask after otherness, to try to elicit a response from the other while respecting that such a response may not be comprehensible even if it is forthcoming. I would like here to posit a desire to ask after the other first before one asks after oneself, to enquire without any hope of a satisfactory answer as such as the postmodern ethical position, and to suggest that the autobiographical slant of Schuyler's work is, paradoxically considering the nature of autobiography, just such a positioning of his self in relation to the world.


Utilitas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-315
Author(s):  
Karsten Klint Jensen

AbstractDerek Parfit defends the Imprecise Lexical View as a way to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. Allowing for ‘imprecise equality’, Parfit argues, makes it possible to avoid some well-known problems for the Lexical View. It is demonstrated that the Lexical View (without imprecise equality) has stronger implications than envisaged by Parfit; moreover, his assumption of Non-diminishing Marginal Value makes the Lexical View collapse into a much stronger view, which lets the two appear incompatible. Introducing imprecise equality does not address the latter problem. But it does makes it possible for the Imprecise Lexical View to soften the discontinuities it would otherwise face, at the cost of blurring the difference between options.However, if Non-diminishing Marginal Value is rejected, the remaining complications for the resulting most plausible version of the Imprecise Lexical View, including a confrontation with Arrhenius’ Non-Elitism Condition, may be within a range where the view largely remains defensible.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (278) ◽  
pp. 114-139
Author(s):  
Michal Masny

Abstract In the posthumously published ‘Future People, the Non-Identity Problem, and Person-Affecting Principles’ (2017), Derek Parfit presents a novel axiological principle which he calls the Wide Dual Person-Affecting Principle and claims that it does not imply the Repugnant Conclusion. This paper shows that even the best version of Parfit's principle cannot avoid this conclusion. That said, accepting such a principle makes embracing the Repugnant Conclusion more justifiable. This paper further addresses important questions which Parfit left unanswered concerning: the relative importance of individual and collective goodness, comparisons involving unequal outcomes, how to understand individual goodness, and whether incomparability at the level of individual goodness implies incomparability at the level of overall goodness.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Kraemer-Mbula ◽  
Robert J.W. Tijssen ◽  
Matthew L. Wallace ◽  
Robert L. McLean

"Modern-day science is under great pressure. A potent mix of increasing expectations, limited resources, tensions between competition and cooperation, and the need for evidence-based funding is creating major change in how science is conducted and perceived. Amidst this perfect storm is the allure of research excellence, a concept that drives decisions made by universities and funders, and defines scientists research strategies and career trajectories. But what is excellent science? And how to recognise it? After decades of inquiry and debate there is still no satisfactory answer. Are we asking the wrong question? Is reality more complex, and excellence in science more elusive, than many are willing to admit? And how should excellence be defined in different parts of the world, particularly in lower-income countries of the Global South where science is expected to contribute to pressing development issues, despite often scarce resources? Many wonder whether the Global South is importing, with or without consenting, the flawed tools for research evaluation from North America and Europe that are not fit for purpose.This book takes a critical view of these issues, touching on conceptual issues and practical problems that inevitably emerge when excellence is at the center of science systems. Emerging from the capacity-building work of the Science Granting Councils Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa, it speaks to scholars, as well as to managers and funders of research around the world. Confronting sticky problems and uncomfortable truths, the chapters contain insights and recommendations that point towards new solutions both for the Global South and the Global North."


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Ocir de Paula Andreata

O problema do mal se apresenta como um grande desafio ao saber humano, principalmente à teologia como ciência do espírito, dado a abrangência de sua manifestação nas diversas dimensões da vida, na complexidade de sua compreensão e nas ameaças ao cuidado do ser. As circunstâncias enfrentadas na existência no mundo, que trazem à consciência humana o problema do mal, manifestam um mal-estar no ser e tocam na questão do sentido e na responsabilidade moral. A atual pandemia do coronavírus trouxe um mal-estar ao ser nestes tempos que desafia à compreensão do sentido da vida. Neste texto refletimos sobre o mal-estar da pandemia, seus possíveis reflexos sobre o sentido existencial do ser e buscamos um apoio teológico ao seu enfrentamento. Nossa reflexão parte da consideração da fragilidade do ser humano em face à pandemia, a partir de dados da pandemia obtidos de informações da imprensa e da Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS). Em seguida a compreensão da situação atual toca na questão do sentido da vida e da responsabilidade moral, sob a ótica ontológica de tradição aristotélica e fenomenológica de Franz Brentano e Edmundo Husserl, e da filosofia existencial tal como em Kierkegaard, Paul Ricoeur e Albert Camus. Depois, com apoio em alguns textos bíblicos e sob uma hermenêutica teológica, busca-se a compreensão de uma forma de transcendência espiritual ao atual mal-estar. Finalmente, a reflexão objetiva apontar para uma compreensão mais ampla e profunda de saúde e vida. AbstractThe problem of evil is presented as a major challenge to human knowledge, especially of the theology spirit of science, given the scope of its manifestation in the various dimensions of life, the complexity of their understanding and threats to the care of the self. The circumstances faced in existence in the world, which bring the problem of evil to human consciousness, manifest a malaise in being and touch on the question of meaning and moral responsibility. The current pandemic of the coronavirus has brought a malaise to being in these times that defies the understanding of the meaning of life. In this text we reflect on the malaise of the pandemic, its possible reflections on the existential sense of being and we seek theological support for its confrontation. Our reflection starts from considering the fragility of the human being in the face of the pandemic, based on data from the pandemic obtained from information from the press and the World Health Organization (WHO). Then the understanding of the current situation touches on the question of the meaning of life and moral responsibility, under the ontological perspective of Aristotelian and phenomenological tradition of Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl, and of existential philosophy as in Kierkegaard, Paul Ricoeur and Albert Camus. Then, with support in some biblical texts and under a theological hermeneutics, an attempt is made to understand a form of spiritual transcendence to the present malaise. Finally, the objective reflection points to a broader and deeper understanding of health and life.


2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Coates ◽  

The problem of the richness of visual experience is that of finding principled grounds for claims about how much of the world a person actually sees at any given moment. It is argued that there are suggestive parallels between the two-component analysis of experience defended by Wilfrid Sellars, and certain recently advanced information processing accounts of visual perception. Sellars' later account of experience is examined in detail, and it is argued that there are good reasons in support of the claim that the sensory nonconceptual content of experience can vary independently of conceptual awareness. It is argued that the Sellarsian analysis is not undermined by recent work on change blindness and related phenomena; a model of visual experience developed by Ronald Rensink is shown to be in essential harmony with the framework provided by Sellars, and provides a satisfactory answer to the problem of the richness of visual experience.


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