How not to avoid the repugnant conclusion
This chapter examines four seemingly promising ways to defuse continua or “spectra” arguments that exploit normative predicates like “better than,” “worse than,” “more choiceworthy,” “preferable to,” “best,” and the like in order to generate puzzles or paradoxes of normativity. The most famous of th...
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| Format: | Book section |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2022
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| _version_ | 1826312820573077504 |
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| author | Chang, R |
| author2 | Arrhenius, G |
| author_facet | Arrhenius, G Chang, R |
| author_sort | Chang, R |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This chapter examines four seemingly promising ways to defuse continua or “spectra” arguments that exploit normative predicates like “better than,” “worse than,” “more choiceworthy,” “preferable to,” “best,” and the like in order to generate puzzles or paradoxes of normativity. The most famous of these arguments is Parfit’s continua argument in population ethics which leads to the Repugnant Conclusion, the claim that a world with a vast number of people with lives barely worth living is better than a world with a large number of people enjoying excellent lives. I argue that we cannot defuse such arguments by appeal to incommensurability, incomparability, indeterminacy, or, indeed, Parfit’s own suggested solution, lexical imprecision. If we are to find a solution to continua arguments, we must look elsewhere. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:14:56Z |
| format | Book section |
| id | oxford-uuid:f9072b5c-2b03-425e-80b2-e84377b4fdb3 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-23T08:27:22Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:f9072b5c-2b03-425e-80b2-e84377b4fdb32024-04-22T12:15:05ZHow not to avoid the repugnant conclusionBook sectionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_3248uuid:f9072b5c-2b03-425e-80b2-e84377b4fdb3EnglishSymplectic ElementsOxford University Press2022Chang, RArrhenius, GByqvist, KCampbell, TFinneron-Burns, EThis chapter examines four seemingly promising ways to defuse continua or “spectra” arguments that exploit normative predicates like “better than,” “worse than,” “more choiceworthy,” “preferable to,” “best,” and the like in order to generate puzzles or paradoxes of normativity. The most famous of these arguments is Parfit’s continua argument in population ethics which leads to the Repugnant Conclusion, the claim that a world with a vast number of people with lives barely worth living is better than a world with a large number of people enjoying excellent lives. I argue that we cannot defuse such arguments by appeal to incommensurability, incomparability, indeterminacy, or, indeed, Parfit’s own suggested solution, lexical imprecision. If we are to find a solution to continua arguments, we must look elsewhere. |
| spellingShingle | Chang, R How not to avoid the repugnant conclusion |
| title | How not to avoid the repugnant conclusion |
| title_full | How not to avoid the repugnant conclusion |
| title_fullStr | How not to avoid the repugnant conclusion |
| title_full_unstemmed | How not to avoid the repugnant conclusion |
| title_short | How not to avoid the repugnant conclusion |
| title_sort | how not to avoid the repugnant conclusion |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT changr hownottoavoidtherepugnantconclusion |