Escaping the Repugnant Conclusion: Rank-Discounted Utilitarianism with Variable Population

Geir Asheim and Stéphane Zuber

No 3958, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Evaluation of climate policies and other issues requires a variable population setting where population is endogenously determined. We propose and axiomatize the rank-discounted critical-level utilitarian social welfare order. It is shown to fill out the space between critical-level utilitarianism and (a version of) critical-level leximin. Moreover, it satisfies many conditions and principles used to evaluate variable population criteria. In particular, it avoids the repugnant conclusion even when the critical level is zero.

Keywords: social evaluation; population ethics; critical-level utilitarianism; social discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 H43 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Escaping the repugnant conclusion: rank-discounted utilitarianism with variable population (2014)
Working Paper: Escaping the repugnant conclusion: rank-discounted utilitarianism with variable population (2014)
Working Paper: Escaping the repugnant conclusion: rank-discounted utilitarianism with variable population (2014)
Working Paper: Escaping the Repugnant Conclusion: Rank-discounted Utilitarianism with Variable Population (2012)
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