Abstract
Repugnance and Perfection
Highlights
The late Derek Parfit was crucial to the establishment of the field called population ethics
I argue that perfectionism gives us a reason to reject RC2, it does not give us any reason to reject, and might support, RC1. In his last two papers on the subject, Parfit develops a strategy for avoiding the repugnant conclusion that appeals in part to perfectionism
If RC1 is, as Parfit says, “very hard to accept,” why is it problematic? Why do population ethicists not reject RC1 and theories that imply it? The reason is that there are arguments for RC1 that are based on very attractive principles
Summary
The late Derek Parfit was crucial to the establishment of the field called population ethics. A foundational problem in population ethics is his “repugnant conclusion.” He introduced it in Reasons and Persons[1], in a formulation I will call RC0: RC0: 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.[2]. I argue that perfectionism gives us a reason to reject RC2, it does not give us any reason to reject, and might support, RC1 In his last two papers on the subject, Parfit develops a strategy for avoiding the repugnant conclusion that appeals in part to perfectionism. If I am right that RC1 is more acceptable than RC2, this may not be an unwelcome result
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