CRITICAL-LEVEL POPULATION PRINCIPLES AND THE REPUGNANT CONCLUSION

Charles Blackorby, Walter Bossert and David Donaldson

Cahiers de recherche from Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ

Abstract: Critical-level generalized-utilitarian population principles with positive critical levels provide an ethically attractive way of avoiding the repugnant conclusion. We discuss the axiomatic foundations of critical-level generalized utilitarianism and investigate its relationship to the sadistic and strong sadistic conclusions. A positive critical level avoids the repugnant conclusion. We demonstrate that, although no critical-level generalized-utilitarian principle can avoid both the repugnant and strong sadistic conclusions, principles that avoid both have significant defects.

Keywords: population ethics; critical-level generalized utilitarianism; repugnant conclusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2002
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Critical-Level Population Principles and the Repugnant Conclusion (2002)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mtl:montec:15-2002

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