Population Ethics Research Articles

The Monstrous Conclusion

This paper introduces the Monstrous Conclusion, according to which, for any population, there is a better population consisting of just one individual (the Monster). The Monstrous Conclusion is deeply counterintuitive. I defend a version of Prioritarianism as a particularly promising population axiology that does not imply the Monstrous Conclusion. According to this version of Prioritarianism, which I call Asymptotic Prioritarianism, there is diminishing marginal moral importance of individual welfare that can get close to, but never quite reach, some upper limit. I argue that Asymptotic Prioritarianism faces a theoretical cost, that I call the Absolute Priority Principle. However, the Absolute Priority Principle is an extreme version of what I call the Trade-off Condition, an already noteworthy problem facing other (more widely endorsed) versions of Prioritarianism. I conclude that it is better for a theory to imply the Absolute Priority Principle and avoid the Monstrous Conclusion than to imply the Monstrous Conclusion and the Trade-off Condition. The potential for Asymptotic Prioritarianism is substantial.

Non-Archimedean population axiologies

Abstract Non-Archimedean population axiologies – also known as lexical views – claim (i) that a sufficient number of lives at a very high positive welfare level would be better than any number of lives at a very low positive welfare level and/or (ii) that a sufficient number of lives at a very low negative welfare level would be worse than any number of lives at a very high negative welfare level. Such axiologies are popular because they can avoid the (Negative) Repugnant Conclusion and satisfy the adequacy conditions given in the central impossibility result in population axiology due to Gustaf Arrhenius. I provide a novel argument against them which appeals to the way that good and bad lives can intuitively outweigh one another.

The Problem with Longtermism

Moral circle expansion has been occurring faster than ever before in the last forty years, with moral agency fully extended to all humans regardless of their ethnicity, and regardless of their geographical location, as well as to animals, plants, ecosystems and even artificial intelligence. This process has made even more headway in recent years with the establishment of moral obligations towards future generations. Responsible for this development is the moral theory – and its associated movement – of longtermism, the bible of which is What We Owe the Future (London: Oneworld, 2022) by William MacAskill, whose book Doing Good Better (London: Guardian Faber, 2015) set the cornerstone of the effective altruist movement of which longtermism forms a part. With its novelty comes great excitement, but longtermism and the arguments on its behalf are not yet well thought out, suffering from various problems and entailing various uncomfortable positions on population axiology and the philosophy of history. This essay advances a number of novel criticisms of longtermism; its aim is to identify further avenues for research required by longtermists, and to establish a standard for the future development of the movement if it is to ever be widely considered as sound. Some of the issues raised here are about the arguments for the moral value of the future; the quantification of that value with the longtermist ethical calculus – or the conjunction of expected value theory with the ‘significance, persistence, contingency’ (SPC) framework; the moral value of making happy people; and our ability to affect the future and the fragility of history. Perhaps the most significant finding of this study is that longtermism currently constitutes a shorterm view on the longterm future, and that a properly longterm view reduces to absurdity.

Population ethics under risk

AbstractPopulation axiology concerns how to rank populations by the relation “is socially preferred to”. So far, population ethicists have (with important exceptions) focused less on the question of how to rank population prospects, that is, alternatives that contain uncertainty as to which population they will bring about. Most public policy choices, however, are decisions under uncertainty, including policy choices that affect the size of a population (such as climate policy choices). Here, we shall address the question of how to rank population prospects by the relation “is socially preferred to”. We start by illustrating how well-known population axiologies can be extended to population prospect axiologies. And we show that new problems arise when extending population axiologies to prospects. In particular, traditional population axiologies lead to prospect-versions of the problems that they are praised for avoiding in the risk-free settings. Moreover, we show how the axiom of State-Wise Dominance allow us to extend any impossibility theorem in population axiology to impossibility theorems for non-trivial population prospects, that is, prospects that confer probabilities strictly between zero and one on different populations. Finally, we formulate impossibility results that only involve probabilistic axioms.

Critical Levels, Critical Ranges, and Imprecise Exchange Rates in Population Axiology

According to Neutral-Set Views in population axiology, some number of lifetime welfare levels are contributively neutral. Adding a life at these levels to a population makes that population neither better nor worse. If just one welfare level is neutral, the view counts as a Neutral-Level View. Adding a life at this level leaves the new population equally good as the original. If more than one welfare level is neutral, the view counts as a Neutral-Range View. Adding a life within this range renders the new population incommensurable with the original.
 In this paper, I sharpen some old objections to these views and offer some new ones. Neutral-Level Views cannot avoid certain Repugnant and Sadistic Conclusions. Neutral-Range Views imply that lives featuring no good or bad components whatsoever can nevertheless swallow up and neutralise goodness and badness. Both classes of view entail that certain small changes in welfare correspond to worryingly large differences in contributive value.
 I then offer a new view that retains much of the appeal of Neutral-Set Views while avoiding the above pitfalls. On the Imprecise Exchange Rates View, the quantity of some good required to outweigh a given unit of some bad is imprecise. This imprecision is the source of incommensurability between lives and populations.

Axiological Retributivism and the Desert Neutrality Paradox

According to axiological retributivism, people can deserve what is bad for them and an outcome in which someone gets what she deserves, even if it is bad for her, can thereby have intrinsic positive value. A question seldom asked is how axiological retributivism should deal with comparisons of outcomes that differ with respect to the number and identities of deserving agents. Attempting to answer this question exposes a problem for axiological retributivism that parallels a well-known problem in population axiology introduced by John Broome. The problem for axiological retributivism is that it supports the existence of a range of negative wellbeing levels such that if a deserving person comes into existence at any of these levels, the resulting outcome is neither better nor worse with respect to desert. However, the existence of such a range is inconsistent with a set of very plausible axiological claims. I call this the desert neutrality paradox. After introducing the paradox, I consider several possible responses to it. I suggest that one reasonable response, though perhaps not the only one, is to reject axiological retributivism.

J. S. Mill on Higher Pleasures and Modes of Existence

The passage of Mill’s Utilitarianism that sets out the condition in which one pleasure has a superior quality than another stokes interpretive controversy. According to the Lexical Interpretation, Mill takes one pleasure, P1 , to be of a superior quality than another, P2 , if, and only if, the smallest quantity of P1 is more valuable than any finite quantity of P2 . This paper argues that, while the Lexical Interpretation may be supported with supplementary evidence, the passage itself does not rule out qualitative superiority without lexical dominance, as it only requires P1 to be more valuable than any quantity of P2 that it is possible for someone to experience. Some will object that this concession to opponents of the Lexical Interpretation still renders Mill’s condition for qualitative superiority too demanding to be plausible. However, if Mill’s qualitative rankings apply to higher-order pleasures taken in modes of existence as such rather than to the pleasures of different activities chosen from within these modes, the objection loses much of its force. One upshot is that Mill may have more to contribute to debates in contemporary population axiology than is usually acknowledged.

A dilemma for lexical and Archimedean views in population axiology

AbstractLexical views in population axiology can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion without violating Transitivity or Separability. However, they imply a dilemma: either some good life is better than any number of slightly worse lives, or else the ‘at least as good as’ relation on populations is radically incomplete. In this paper, I argue that Archimedean views face an analogous dilemma. I thus conclude that the lexical dilemma gives us little reason to prefer Archimedean views. Even if we give up on lexicality, problems of the same kind remain.

The impossibility of a satisfactory population prospect axiology (independently of Finite Fine-Grainedness)

Arrhenius’s impossibility theorems purport to demonstrate that no population axiology can satisfy each of a small number of intuitively compelling adequacy conditions. However, it has recently been pointed out that each theorem depends on a dubious assumption: Finite Fine-Grainedness. This assumption states that there exists a finite sequence of slight welfare differences between any two welfare levels. Denying Finite Fine-Grainedness makes room for a lexical population axiology which satisfies all of the compelling adequacy conditions in each theorem. Therefore, Arrhenius’s theorems fail to prove that there is no satisfactory population axiology. In this paper, I argue that Arrhenius’s theorems can be repurposed. Since all of our population-affecting actions have a non-zero probability of bringing about more than one distinct population, it is population prospect axiologies that are of practical relevance, and amended versions of Arrhenius’s theorems demonstrate that there is no satisfactory population prospect axiology. These impossibility theorems do not depend on Finite Fine-Grainedness, so lexical views do not escape them.

A new argument for moral error theory

AbstractTraditional arguments for moral error theory are based on identifying a problem with the metaphysics of moral properties. I provide a new argument that is based on the inconsistency of first‐order moral judgments. I illustrate this using impossibility results in population axiology.

ParthaDasgupta, Time and the Generations: Population Ethics for a Diminishing Planet. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. xliv + 296 p. $28.00

ParthaDasgupta, Time and the Generations: Population Ethics for a Diminishing Planet. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. xliv + 296 p. $28.00

Population axiology and the possibility of a fourth category of absolute value

AbstractCritical-Range Utilitarianism is a variant of Total Utilitarianism which can avoid both the Repugnant Conclusion and the Sadistic Conclusion in population ethics. Yet Standard Critical-Range Utilitarianism entails the Weak Sadistic Conclusion, that is, it entails that each population consisting of lives at a bad well-being level is not worse than some population consisting of lives at a good well-being level. In this paper, I defend a version of Critical-Range Utilitarianism which does not entail the Weak Sadistic Conclusion. This is made possible by what I call ‘undistinguishedness’, a fourth category of absolute value in addition to goodness, badness, and neutrality.

Some Possibilities in Population Axiology

Some Possibilities in Population Axiology

Population axiology

AbstractPopulation axiology is the study of the conditions under which one state of affairs is better than another, when the states of affairs in question may differ over the numbers and the identities of the persons who ever live. Extant theories include totalism, averagism, variable value theories, critical level theories, and “person‐affecting” theories. Each of these theories is open to objections that are at least prima facie serious. A series of impossibility theorems shows that this is no coincidence: It can be proved, for various lists of prima facie intuitively compelling desiderata, that no axiology can simultaneously satisfy all the desiderata on the list. One's choice of population axiology appears to be a choice of which intuition one is least unwilling to give up.

Moral Uncertainty About Population Axiology

Given the deep disagreement surrounding population axiology, one should remain uncertain about which theory is best. However, this uncertainty need not leave one neutral about which acts are better or worse. We show that, as the number of lives at stake grows, the Expected Moral Value approach to axiological uncertainty systematically pushes one toward choosing the option preferred by the Total View and critical-level views, even if one’s credence in those theories is low.

On the survival of humanity

AbstractWhat moral reasons, if any, do we have to ensure the long-term survival of humanity? This article contrastively explores two answers to this question: according to the first, we should ensure the survival of humanity because we have reason to maximize the number of happy lives that are ever lived, all else equal. According to the second, seeking to sustain humanity into the future is the appropriate response to the final value of humanity itself. Along the way, the article discusses various issues in population axiology, particularly the so-called Intuition of Neutrality and John Broome’s ‘greediness objection’ to this intuition.

Asymmetric population axiology: deliberative neutrality delivered

Two related asymmetries have been discussed in relation to the ethics of creating new lives: First, we seem to have strong moral reason to avoid creating lives that are not worth living, but no moral reason to create lives that are worth living. Second, we seem to have strong moral reason to improve the wellbeing of existing lives, but, again, no moral reason to create lives that are worth living. Both asymmetries have proven very difficult to account for in any coherent moral framework. I propose an impersonal population axiology to underpin the asymmetries, which sidesteps the problematic issue of whether or not people can be harmed or benefited by creation or non-creation. This axiology yields perfect asymmetry from a deliberative perspective, in terms of expected value. The axiology also yields substantial asymmetry for large and realistic populations in terms of their actual value, beyond deliberative relevance.

The Person-Affecting Restriction, Comparativism, and the Moral Status of Potential People

Traditional ethical theories have paradoxical implications in regards to questions concerning procreation and our moral duties to future people. It has been suggested that the crux of the problem resides in an all too 'impersonal' axiology and that the problems of population axiology can be solved by adopting a 'Person Affecting Restriction' which in its slogan form states that an outcome can only be better than another if it is better for people. This move has been especially popular in the context of medical ethics where many of the problems of population axiology are actualized. Examples are embryo or egg selection, pre-implantation genetic testing, assisted reproduction programmes, abortion, just to mention a few. I discuss a number of different interpretations of the Restriction and in particular one interpretation which I call Comparativism. According to this view, we should draw a distinction between uniquely and non-uniquely realizable people. The former people only exist in one out of two possible outcomes, whereas the latter exist in both of the compared outcomes. The idea is that we should give more weight to the well-being of non-uniquely realizable people or take it into account in a different way as compared to the well-being of uniquely realizable people. I argue that the different versions of the Person Affecting Restriction and Comparativism either have counterintuitive implications of their own or are compatible with traditional theories such as Utilitarianism.

Feldman's Desert-Adjusted Utilitarianism and Population Ethics

Fred Feldman has proposed a desert-adjusted version of utilitarianism, ‘justicism’, as a plausible population axiology. Among other things, he claims that justicism avoids Derek Parfit's ‘repugnant conclusion’. This paper explains the theory and tries to straighten out some of its ambiguities. Moreover, it is shown that it is not clear whether justicism avoids the repugnant conclusion and that it is has other counter-intuitive implications. It is concluded that justicism is not convincing as a population axiology.

An Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies

A search is under way for a theory that can accommodate our intuitions in population axiology. The object of this search has proved elusive. This is not surprising since, as we shall see, any welfarist axiology that satisfies three reasonable conditions implies at least one of three counter-intuitive conclusions. I shall start by pointing out the failures in three recent attempts to construct an acceptable population axiology. I shall then present an impossibility theorem and conclude with a short discussion of how it might be extended to pluralist axiologies, that is, axiologies that take more values than welfare into account.