What Should We Agree on about the Repugnant Conclusion?

Zuber, Stéphane; Venkatesh, Nikhil; Tännsjö, Torbjörn; Tarsney, Christian; Stefánsson, H. Orri; Steele, Katie; Spears, Dean; Sebo, Jeff; Pivato, Marcus; Ord, Toby; Ng, Yew Kwang; Masny, Michal; MacAskill, William; Lawson, Nicholas; Kuruc, Kevin; Hutchinson, Michelle; Gustafsson, Johan E.; Greaves, H. R. G.; Forsberg, Lisa; Fleurbaey, Marc; Coffey, Diane; Cato, Susumu; Castro, Clinton; Campbell, Tim; Budolfson, Mark; Broome, John; Berger, Alexander; Beckstead, Nick; Asheim, Geir B.

doi:10.1017/s095382082100011x

Cited by 25 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Pace Zuber et al (2021), many continue to believe that we must avoid the (Negative) Repugnant Conclusion. Non-Archimedean population axiologiesalso called lexical viewscan do so.…”

Section: Negative Repugnant Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Archimedean population axiologies

Baker

2024

Economics and Philosophy

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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 other.

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“…Pace Zuber et al (2021), many continue to believe that we must avoid the (Negative) Repugnant Conclusion. Non-Archimedean population axiologiesalso called lexical viewscan do so.…”

Section: Negative Repugnant Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Archimedean population axiologies

Baker

2024

Economics and Philosophy

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“…I have over and over again argued that it is not. 25 However, this view of mine still seems to be controversial. To see, in the present context, that it is not, think of it as a choice between the happy ending of humanity (ten billion happy individuals) as compared to an indefinite continuation of it (on a level where life is just worth living)?…”

Section: The Repugnant Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Cares? ―The COVID-19 Pandemic, Global Heating and the Future of Humanity1

Tännsjö¹

2021

Controversial Ideas

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The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered unprecedented drastic and costly measures to obviate the threat. Will something similar happen in relation to global heating? No, this is not likely. Mainly this has to do with a difference in the nature of collective action. Nation states protect their respective populations against the virus. With regard to global heating, we are facing the tragedy of the commons. No global government assumes responsibility for our common future. However, there may be another and further explanation lurking behind political inaction: many people, including our politicians, think that it does not matter if humanity goes extinct. It does matter, however. Strangely enough, the view that it matters is questioned by many important philosophers in the past and in the present, and it is hence controversial. Yet, it should be our common-sense stance to the problem. It is of the utmost importance that there will be sentient happy life on the globe for an indefinite time. Theoretically speaking, in order to recognize this, we need to accept some “total” view, implying what has been called the repugnant conclusion. Practically speaking, we should go to great length to rescue our human civilisation, even if this means that, for a while, we must endure all sorts of hardships such as a global enlightened despotism, or worse—a situation of life boat ethics.

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“…In the contemporary philosophical discourse, general (or a priori) antinatalism is a central question of population ethics, a branch of philosophical ethics that deals with questions concerning the welfare, identities, and/or numbers of people that exist or will exist. While there has been significant philosophical debate relating to these questions (Arrhenius, 2000; Greaves, 2017; Parfit, 1984; Zuber et al, 2021), there has also recently been an upswing of empirical social science work that investigates related questions. For example, Schoenegger and Grodeck (forthcoming) outlined how lay people respond when their ethical intuitions about populations conflict with their endorsed moral principles.…”

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confidence: 99%

Introduction and Validation of the Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS)

Schönegger

Maier

Bastos

2023

Psychological Test Adaptation and Development

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Antinatalism is the view that procreation is morally wrong. This paper introduces and validates the Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS) that allows researchers to measure antinatalist views. We conducted four preregistered studies with a total of 1,088 participants. First, we ran a study on Prolific ( N = 296) and conducted an exploratory factor analysis of an initial scale including 22 items drawn from the philosophical literature on antinatalism. In Study 2, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of a reduced 12-item scale, also on Prolific ( N = 396). Based on a Mokken scale analysis, we further reduced the scale to a 5-item version which we tested in a second confirmatory factor analysis, Study 3, on Prolific ( N = 297), where we also aimed to provide evidence of validity. The results indicated excellent model fit (RMSEA = 0.012) and evidence for validity (with life satisfaction, affective empathy, and conservatism correlating negatively with antinatalism). Lastly, we conducted Study 4 with a sample of self-identified antinatalists on Reddit ( N = 99) to provide additional evidence of validity. We find that the instrument is measurement invariant between self-described antinatalists and the general population and that antinatalists score significantly higher on the scale ( d = 2.80). This provides evidence in favor of reliability and validity with respect to the final 5-item Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS). We hope that the S-ANS, which is freely available to all researchers, advances rigorous research into antinatalism and its determinants across a variety of fields that relate to the value of life and procreation.

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What Should We Agree on about the Repugnant Conclusion?

Cited by 25 publications

References 12 publications

Non-Archimedean population axiologies

Non-Archimedean population axiologies

Who Cares? ―The COVID-19 Pandemic, Global Heating and the Future of Humanity1

Introduction and Validation of the Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS)

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