Superiority Discounting Implies the Preposterous Conclusion

Mitchell Barrington

Utilitas, 2022, vol. 34, issue 4, 493-501

Abstract: Many population axiologies avoid the Repugnant Conclusion (RC) by endorsing Superiority: some number of great lives is better than any number of mediocre lives. But as Nebel shows, RC follows (given plausible auxiliary assumptions) from the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion (IRC): a guaranteed mediocre life is better than a sufficiently small probability of a great life. This result is concerning because IRC is plausible. Recently, Kosonen has argued that IRC can be true while RC is false if small probabilities are discounted to zero. This article details the unique problems created by combining Superiority with discounting. The resultant view, Superiority Discounting, avoids the Repugnant Conclusion only at the cost of the Preposterous Conclusion: near-certain hell for arbitrarily many people is better than near-certain heaven for arbitrarily many people.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:utilit:v:34:y:2022:i:4:p:493-501_10

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Utilitas from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().