Parity, Imprecise Comparability and the Repugnant Conclusion

The Very Repugnant Conclusion

Population axiology concerns how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with “paradoxes” which seem to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies. Already in Derek Parfit’s seminal contribution to t...

Escaping the repugnant conclusion: Rank-discounted utilitarianism with variable population

We contribute to population ethics by proposing and axiomatizing rankdiscounted critical-level generalized utilitarianism (RDCLU). Population ethics is needed for evaluation of policies, e.g., concerning climate change, where population size depends on the chosen policy. We show that critical-level generalized utilitarianism and (a version of) critical-level leximin are the limits of RDCLU for ...

Assessing the Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion within a canonical endogenous growth set-up∗

Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion stipulates that under total utilitarianism, it might be optimal to choose increasing population size while consumption per capita goes to zero. We evaluate this claim within a canonical AK model with endogenous fertility and a reduced form relationship between demographic growth and economic growth. While in the traditional linear dilution model, the Parfit Repugna...

Can it ever be better never to have existed at all? Person-based consequentialism and a new repugnant conclusion.

Broome and others have argued that it makes no sense, or at least that it cannot be true, to say that it is better for a given person that he or she exist than not. That argument can be understood to suggest that, likewise, it makes no sense, or at least that it cannot be true, to say that it is worse for a given person that he or she exist than that he or she never have existed at all. This ar...

Conclusion