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Topic: Repugnant Conclusion

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Mere addition paradox

Derek Parfit

	Mere addition paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Population D, twice as large and with a somewhat lower level of happiness would then be better than C, and so on, until reaching the Repugnant Conclusion that the best outcome is Z, an enormous population with all members having lives barely worth living.
		Claim (3) follows if we reject the Repugnant Conclusion and hold that Z is worse than A. A paradox results.
		Parfit calls this threshold "the bad level", but argues that it is likely to be too low to effectively prevent the repugnant conclusion, applying only to lives that are "gravely deficient" and which, "though worth living...
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Mere_addition_paradox (560 words)

	[No title]
		The paradoxical nature of Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion is traced to the simultaneous application of two inconsistent outside observer constructs: one to judge the Repugnant Conclusion as repugnant, and another to define the utility scale for a marginally worthwhile life.
		The proposed resolution of the Repugnant Conclusion is distinct from the extant literature.
		In contrast, the Non-Repugnant Conclusion first fixes a highly populated alternative (or alternatives), and then finds that there exists a sufficiently small utility level for those marginal lives, such that the smaller population with higher average utility is welfare-dominating and the Repugnant Conclusion is not preferred.
	www.gmu.edu /jbc/Tyler/ZERO.doc (9570 words)

	John Broome - Weighing Lives - Reviewed by Garrett Cullity, , University of Adelaide - Philosophical Reviews - ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Then the first part of Broome's conclusion is that your lifetime well-being is the sum of the values of all of your states of temporal well-being.
		The second part of Broome's conclusion is that the value of a distribution of well-being for any population is the sum of the amounts by which the lifetime well-being of each person exceeds the neutral level for adding a life.
		Broome concludes that the right view will be the least implausible compromise between recognizing a zone of vagueness surrounding the neutral level which is broad enough to blunt the positive and negative repugnant conclusions, but not so broad that it leads to intolerable forms of greedy neutrality.
	ndpr.nd.edu /review.cfm?id=4961 (2478 words)

	Cui Bono?, or, Avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		One way to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion would be to reject the technical argument I have just sketched; to deny, in other words, that we can get from the present world to the Repugnant one by a sequence of value-improving changes.
		Clearly, it is the objective kind of value that matters for Parfit’s argument: the world of the Repugnant Conclusion is one in which each life is only just worthwhile objectively: it is only just better that each person should exist than that they should never have existed.
		But the Repugnance of the Conclusion is the result of our assumption that a life that’s only just worthwhile would be, in fact, rather nasty.
	homepage.ntlworld.com /g.mccaughan/g/essays/cui-bono.html (983 words)

	Abstract (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Parfit rejects this principle, because he believes that it implies the Repugnant Conclusion, the conclusion that for any large population of people, all with lives well worth living, there will be some much larger population whose existence would be a better alternative even though its members all have lives that are only barely worth living.
		Recently however, a number of philosophers have suggested that the Total Principle does not imply the Repugnant Conclusion provided that a certain axiological view (namely, "the Discontinuity View") is correct.
		Nevertheless, as I point out, there are three different versions of the Repugnant Conclusion, and it appears that the Total Principle will imply two of these three even if the Discontinuity View is correct.
	www.csun.edu /~dp56722/dttphari.htm (201 words)

	Philosophy, et cetera: The Population Paradox
		But that means we are left with "the repugnant conclusion" of denying #1, and accepting that a swarm of dull (near-baseline) lives is better (or at least no worse) than a more moderate population of flourishing lives.
		That is, the 'repugnant conclusion' that quantity can outweigh quality of life.
		In the repugnant conclusion, utility per person has been decreased (at least as far as the original w1 population are concerned).
	pixnaps.blogspot.com /2005/06/population-paradox.html (3727 words)

	PARFIT’S PUZZLE
		I contend that this is a Ludicrous Conclusion.
		Parfit’s own elaboration of the Repugnant Conclusion, especially in the sequence of worlds we considered in section 3, embodies just that supposition (which is one reason why I take the proof of section 7 to distill what’s crucial to his puzzle).
		The Repugnant Conclusion is now blocked because no number of lives that succeed in trivial ways can compensate for lives that are successful in the important respects.
	www.columbia.edu /~psk16/ppn.htm (9209 words)

	PCBE: Transcripts (March 4, 2005)
		So you're going to have enormous wastage all the way along the line, and each wastage is the use of an oocyte donated by a woman, and I think this is not a line of research that I at least am prepared to support.
		My objection was to the conclusion and to the lack of fit between the ethical analysis presented in the white paper and the last paragraph of the conclusion.
		I think there is a way to do this and find a kind of general acceptance around the table, and I certainly welcome the chance to try to produce such language, not here on the spot today, but in short order, and the troops in the office know how to do this very well.
	www.bioethics.gov /transcripts/march05/session5.html (6475 words)

	Critical Levels and the (Reverse) Repugnant Conclusion
		It is well-known that there is a trade-off regarding the properties of population principles that are used to make social evaluations when the number of people in the society under consideration may vary.
		The commonly used principles either lead to the repugnant conclusion (which is the case for classical utilitarianism), or they violate the Pareto plus principle and related properties (average utilitarianism is an example of such a principle).
		This paper examines the nature of this trade-off and shows that the incompatibility between avoiding the repugnant conclusion and the Pareto plus principle is fundamental and not restricted to the commonly
	ideas.repec.org /p/ubc/bcecwp/9710.html (278 words)

	Recent Publications
		This is so, it is argued, notwithstanding the fact that the reproductive choice (for example, the use of strong fertility drugs in the absence of procedures designed to avoid multiple pregnancy) is part of the causal chain that eventuates in the existence of those offspring, who (probably) would never have otherwise existed at all.
		This article critically considers a handful of arguments to the conclusion that statements purporting to assert that never having existed at all can be better, in the case of some individuals, than existence are always incoherent or at least untrue.
		My conclusion is that two variations of the nonidentity problem are inconsistent with the basic tenets of person-affecting consequentialism and can be safely set aside, and that the third variation leads to results that are controversial but not obviously implausible.
	www.tcnj.edu /~robertsm/proflinks.html (2193 words)

	CHAPTER 18: THE ABSURD CONCLUSION
		Implies (A) and (R)—variants of the absurd conclusion and the repugnant conclusions and mere addition paradox
		Implies (A) and (R)—variants of the absurd conclusion and the repugnant conclusion and mere addition paradox
		Conclusion: since we cannot limit the badness of unmitigated suffering, there can be no limit to quantity's positive value.
	web.utk.edu /~nolt/courses/646/Parfit18.htm (593 words)

	Should We Seek a Better Future?
		Schwartz fails to notice, however, that his (valid) formal conclusion is not equivalent to the essential contention of his paper.
		Second, Schwartz' mode of argument leads to the repugnant conclusion that a parent has no obligation to provide for the future of an infant child.
		The implications of this conclusion range from the practically significant to the bizarre.
	gadfly.igc.org /papers/swsabf.htm (6017 words)

	Problems of overpopulation
		One could generalise Parfit's repugnant conclusion by noting that maximising X can equally well be achieved by a limitless expansion of the number of people receiving a minimally positive amount of X, instead of increasing the amount of X each of a much smaller number enjoy.
		It has been argued that the repugnant conclusion does not in fact follow on the assumption of maximising total utility.
		The final outcome, the last in a sequence of betters leading to yet better outcomes, is Omega 100 in which countless millions live at a barely worthwile level: the Repugnant Conclusion again.
	www.uwichill.edu.bb /bnccde/PH19B/ph19b_overpopulation.htm (2284 words)

	Papers
		"Repugnance or Intransitivity: A Repugnant But Forced Choice," The Repugnant Conclusion: Essays on Population Ethics, Jesper Ryberg and Torbjorn Tannsjo, eds.
		Abstract: A set of arguments shows that either the Repugnant Conclusion and its variants are true or the better-than relation isn’t transitive.
		Abstract: In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit cannot find a theory of well-being that solves the Non-Identity Problem, the Repugnant Conclusion, the Absurd Conclusion, and all forms of the Mere Addition Paradox.
	www.bradpriddy.com /rachels/papers.htm (1237 words)

	Critical Levels and the (Reverse) Repugnant Conclusion
		The commonly used pricipales either lead to the repugnant conclusion (which is the case for classical utilitarianism), or they violate the pareto plus principle and related properties (average utilitarianis is an example of such a principle).
		This paper examines the nature of this trade-off and shows that the incompatibility between avoiding the repugnant conclusion and the Pareto plus principle is fundamental and not restricted to the commonly used population principles.
		"Critical Levels and the (Reverse) Repugnant Conclusion," Old UBC Departmental Papers 9710, UBC Department of Economics.
	ideas.repec.org /p/ubc/bricol/97-10.html (280 words)

	Matthew Yglesias: Empiricism, Liberalism, and Consequentialism
		This is also why the non-liberals at Marginal Revolution make for congenial reading to me to despite their libertarian orientation.
		Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion is essentially that if you rank possible worlds according to "total" utility, then adding people whose lives are barely worth living to a population that's well off improves the situation, because they ARE positive contributions to total utility, even if small.
		The difficulty with avoiding Parfit's Conclusion, is that if you try to maximize average utility instead of total, you arrive at the conclusion that the ideal world is a handful of really, REALLY happy people.
	yglesias.typepad.com /matthew/2005/02/empiricism_libe.html (5212 words)

	Nicomachus
		Moreover, when great bodily harms to persons or rights are at stake, we seem to have good reason to deny that small losses in utility aggregate across persons.
		See, for example, the issues raised by Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion --in fact, ask Tyler Cowen about "What...We Learn From the Repugnant Conclusion" (Ethics 106).
		I suppose this means we can expect less good philosophy from him as time goes on.
	nicomachus.blogspot.com /2004_05_01_nicomachus_archive.html (5938 words)

	Philosophy Papers Online: Paper Display
		This paper defends actualist utilitarianism, the view that we ought to act so as to maximise the sum of actual people's utilities.
		I argue that there is an ambiguity in the definition of actualist utilitarianism, and that Broome's objection applies only on one possible disambiguation.
		On a different disambiguation, not only does actualist utilitarianism dodge the objection, but it delivers two further benefits: it captures Broome's 'intuition of neutral existence', and it avoids, at least partly, Derek Parfit's 'Repugnant Conclusion'.
	phonline.org /paper.php?keynum=679 (248 words)

	Amazon.com: Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy): Books: ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		They set out the problems they deal with in an exceptionally clear way, and the conclusions reached are always well defended.
		SIPs: basic intrinsic value state, adjusting utility for justice, taking intrinsic pleasure, hedonic phenomenon, qualified hedonism (more)
		CAPs: Hedonic Thesis, New York, Repugnant Conclusion, Irish Wolfhound, Cocker Spaniel (more)
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521591554?v=glance (917 words)

	Gustaf Arrhenius
		“The Very Repugnant Conclusion” i Krister Segerberg and
		and the Repugnant Conclusion), Filosofidagarna, Svenska Filosofisällskapet (Swedish Philosophical Association Biennial Conference), Göteborg, June 1999.
		“An Impossibility Theorem for Any Moral Axiology”, and “Understanding the Repugnant Conclusion”, University of
	people.su.se /~guarr (1029 words)

	Repugnant Conclusion by at Smarter.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
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	www.smarter.com /books-1/product/repugnant_conclusion-1441196 (134 words)

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