Acyclic population ethics and menu-dependent relations

Susumu Cato

Economics and Philosophy, 2025, vol. 41, issue 2, 427-439

Abstract: It has been shown that the Mere Addition Paradox occurs in a choice-functional approach with Path Independence (Stewart R.T., 2021, Path independence and a persistent paradox of population ethics, Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming). The present study is a three-part response to this finding. First, I show that Path Independence is not an essential property leading to this paradox and that logically weaker properties can get the same result. Second, I present a rationalizable choice function that does not yield the paradox. And third, I argue that menu-dependent relations are nicely examined if Path Independence is relaxed to Property $\alpha $ (or equivalently, Contraction Consistency).

Date: 2025
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