Consequentialist demographic norms and parenting rights.

Abstract

"This paper extends the author's recent work on dynamically consistent consequentialist social norms for an unrestricted domain of decision trees with risk to trees in which the population is a variable consequence--i.e., endogenous. Given a form of ethical liberalism and ethical irrelevance of distant ancestors, classical utilitarianism is implied (provided also that a weak continuity condition is met). The 'repugnant conclusion' that having many poor people may be desirable can be avoided by denying that individuals' interests extend to the circumstances of their birth. But it is better avoided by recognizing that potential parents have legitimate interests concerning the sizes of their families."