Climate Ethics
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Anintrapersonaladditionparadox
An Intrapersonal Addition Paradox Jacob M. Nebel December 1, 2017 Abstract I present a new problem for those of us who wish to avoid the repugnant conclu- sion. The problem is an intrapersonal, risky analogue of the mere addition paradox. The problem is important for three reasons. First, it highlights new conditions at least one of which must be rejected in order to avoid the repugnant conclusion. Some solu- tions to Parfit’s original puzzle do not obviously generalize to our intrapersonal puzzle in a plausible way. Second, it raises new concerns about how to make decisions un- der uncertainty for the sake of people whose existence might depend on what we do. Different answers to these questions suggest different solutions to the extant puzzles in population ethics. And, third, the problem suggests new difficulties for leading views about the value of a person’s life compared to her nonexistence. 1 The Mere Addition Paradox Many of us want to avoid what Parfit (1984) calls The Repugnant Conclusion: For any population of excellent lives, there is some population of mediocre lives whose existence would be better. By “better,” I mean something like what (Parfit 2011, 41) calls the impartial-reason-implying sense. One thing is better than another in this sense just in case, from an impartial point of view, we would have most reason to prefer the one to the other; two things are equally good in this sense just in case, from an impartial point of view, we would have most reason 1 to be indifferent between them. -
On the Nature of Moral Ideals PART II
12 On the Nature of Moral Ideals PART II In chapter 11 , we saw that Parfi t appealed to an Essentially Comparative View of Equality in presenting his Mere Addition Paradox, and that Parfi t now believes that his doing so was a big mistake. More generally, Parfi t now thinks that we should reject any Essentially Comparative View about the goodness of outcomes, which means that we must reject the Essentially Comparative View for all moral ideals relevant to assessing the goodness of outcomes. I noted my agreement with Parfi t that we should reject an Essentially Comparative View of Equality. But should we take the further step of rejecting an Essentially Comparative View for all moral ideals, in favor of the Internal Aspects View of Moral Ideals? Do we, in fact, open ourselves up to serious error if we allow our judgment about alternatives like A and A + to be infl uenced by whether or not A + involves Mere Addition? It may seem the answers to these questions must surely be “Yes!” Aft er all, as we saw in chapter 11 , adopting the Internal Aspects View would give us a way of reject- ing the Mere Addition Paradox. More important, it would enable us to avoid intran- sitivity in our all-things-considered judgments (in my wide reason-implying sense), allow the “all-things-considered better than” relation to apply to all sets of comparable outcomes, and license the Principle of Like Comparability for Equivalents. More- over, in addition to the unwanted implications of its denial, the Internal Aspects View has great appeal in its own right. -
Intransitivity and Future Generations: Debunking Parfit's Mere Addition Paradox
Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 2,Intransitivity 2003 and Future Generations 187 Intransitivity and Future Generations: Debunking Parfit’s Mere Addition Paradox KAI M. A. CHAN Duties to future persons contribute critically to many important contemporaneous ethical dilemmas, such as environmental protection, contraception, abortion, and population policy. Yet this area of ethics is mired in paradoxes. It appeared that any principle for dealing with future persons encountered Kavka’s paradox of future individuals, Parfit’s repugnant conclusion, or an indefensible asymmetry. In 1976, Singer proposed a utilitarian solution that seemed to avoid the above trio of obstacles, but Parfit so successfully demonstrated the unacceptability of this position that Singer abandoned it. Indeed, the apparently intransitivity of Singer’s solution contributed to Temkin’s argument that the notion of “all things considered better than” may be intransitive. In this paper, I demonstrate that a time-extended view of Singer’s solution avoids the intransitivity that allows Parfit’s mere addition paradox to lead to the repugnant conclusion. However, the heart of the mere addition paradox remains: the time-extended view still yields intransitive judgments. I discuss a general theory for dealing with intransitivity (Tran- sitivity by Transformation) that was inspired by Temkin’s sports analogy, and demonstrate that such a solution is more palatable than Temkin suspected. When a pair-wise comparison also requires consideration of a small number of relevant external alternatives, we can avoid intransitivity and the mere addition paradox without infinite comparisons or rejecting the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Principle. Disagreement regarding the nature and substance of our duties to future persons is widespread. -
The Ethical Consistency of Animal Equality
1 The ethical consistency of animal equality Stijn Bruers, Sept 2013, DRAFT 2 Contents 0. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................ 5 0.1 SUMMARY: TOWARDS A COHERENT THEORY OF ANIMAL EQUALITY ........................................................................ 9 1. PART ONE: ETHICAL CONSISTENCY ......................................................................................................... 18 1.1 THE BASIC ELEMENTS ................................................................................................................................. 18 a) The input data: moral intuitions .......................................................................................................... 18 b) The method: rule universalism............................................................................................................. 20 1.2 THE GOAL: CONSISTENCY AND COHERENCE ..................................................................................................... 27 1.3 THE PROBLEM: MORAL ILLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ 30 a) Optical illusions .................................................................................................................................... 30 b) Moral illusions .................................................................................................................................... -
A Set of Solutions to Parfit's Problems
NOÛS 35:2 ~2001! 214–238 A Set of Solutions to Parfit’s Problems Stuart Rachels University of Alabama In Part Four of Reasons and Persons Derek Parfit searches for “Theory X,” a satisfactory account of well-being.1 Theories of well-being cover the utilitarian part of ethics but don’t claim to cover everything. They say nothing, for exam- ple, about rights or justice. Most of the theories Parfit considers remain neutral on what well-being consists in; his ingenious problems concern form rather than content. In the end, Parfit cannot find a theory that solves each of his problems. In this essay I propose a theory of well-being that may provide viable solu- tions. This theory is hedonic—couched in terms of pleasure—but solutions of the same form are available even if hedonic welfare is but one aspect of well-being. In Section 1, I lay out the “Quasi-Maximizing Theory” of hedonic well-being. I motivate the least intuitive part of the theory in Section 2. Then I consider Jes- per Ryberg’s objection to a similar theory. In Sections 4–6 I show how the theory purports to solve Parfit’s problems. If my arguments succeed, then the Quasi- Maximizing Theory is one of the few viable candidates for Theory X. 1. The Quasi-Maximizing Theory The Quasi-Maximizing Theory incorporates four principles. 1. The Conflation Principle: One state of affairs is hedonically better than an- other if and only if one person’s having all the experiences in the first would be hedonically better than one person’s having all the experiences in the second.2 The Conflation Principle sanctions translating multiperson comparisons into single person comparisons. -
Future Generations: a Prioritarian View
Future Generations: A Prioritarian View Matthew D. Adler* How should we take account of the interests of future genera- tions? This question has great practical relevance. For example, it is front and center in arguments about global warming policy. Unfortu- nately, the question is doubly difficult—doubly, because it not merely implicates generic disputes about the structure of moral obligations (disputes between consequentialists and nonconsequentialists, welfa- rists and nonwelfarists, and so forth), but because the appropriate treatment of future generations implicates distinct problems that are not resolved merely by adopting one or another generic framework. This Article addresses the appropriate treatment of future gen- erations within the framework of prioritarianism. In prior articles and a forthcoming book, I argue that the “social welfare function” (“SWF”) approach to policy choice provides a systematic, imple- mentable, and theoretically well-grounded method for rendering pol- icy sensitive not only to efficiency, but also to equity—to the fair dis- tribution of well-being.1 In particular, I defend a “prioritarian” SWF. N A prioritarian SWF ranks outcomes using the formula — g(())uxi i1 where x is an outcome; ui(x) an individual utility number representing the well-being of individual i in outcome x; and g(.) a strictly increas- ing and strictly concave function.2 Because g(.) is strictly increasing and strictly concave, changes to the well-being of worse-off individu- als have greater social weight than changes to the well-being of bet- ter-off individuals. The prioritarian SWF is therefore sensitive to eq- * Leon Meltzer Professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School. -
Population Ethics
Population Ethics Johan E. Gustafsson 1 Populations as Boxes The size of the population People’s well-being level The zero level of well-being 2 Total Utilitarianism A first population is at least as good as a second population if and only if the sum total of well-being is at least as great in the first as in the second. 3 Derek Parfit (1984, p. 388) The Repugnant Conclusion For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better, even though its members have lives barely worth living. 4 The Repugnant Conclusion A Z For every population like A, there is a better population like Z. 5 Average Utilitarianism A first population is at least as good as a second population if and only if the average well-being is at least as great in the first as in the second. 6 Average utilitarianism avoids the repugnant conclusion, since it yields that A is better than Z. A Z But average utilitarianism has other problems. It yields that a large population of people with very high well-being is worse than a population with only one person who has just slightly higher well-being than the average in the first population. 7 The Mere-Addition Paradox A A+ B Intuitively, it seems that A - A+ ≺ B. Then, by transitivity, we have A ≺ B. 8 A A+ B B+ C Z We can iterate the reasoning in the mere-addition paradox: A - A+ ≺ B - B+ ≺ C .. -
Frick, Johann David
'Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People': A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Frick, Johann David. 2014. 'Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People': A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13064981 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ʹMaking People Happy, Not Making Happy Peopleʹ: A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics A dissertation presented by Johann David Anand Frick to The Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Philosophy Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts September 2014 © 2014 Johann Frick All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisors: Professor T.M. Scanlon Author: Johann Frick Professor Frances Kamm ʹMaking People Happy, Not Making Happy Peopleʹ: A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics Abstract This dissertation provides a defense of the normative intuition known as the Procreation Asymmetry, according to which there is a strong moral reason not to create a life that will foreseeably not be worth living, but there is no moral reason to create a life just because it would foreseeably be worth living. Chapter 1 investigates how to reconcile the Procreation Asymmetry with our intuitions about another recalcitrant problem case in population ethics: Derek Parfit’s Non‑Identity Problem. -
On Climate Change Mitigation Policy
Impact of population growth and population ethics on climate change mitigation policy Noah Scovronicka,1,2, Mark B. Budolfsonb,1, Francis Dennigc, Marc Fleurbaeya,d, Asher Sieberte, Robert H. Socolowf, Dean Spearsg,h,1, and Fabian Wagnera,i,j aWoodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; bDepartment of Philosophy, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405; cYale–NUS College, Singapore 138527; dCenter for Human Values, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; eInternational Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964; fDepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; gDepartment of Economics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712; hEconomics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, India, 110016; iAndlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; and jInternational Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria A-2361 Edited by William C. Clark, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved September 26, 2017 (received for review November 4, 2016) Future population growth is uncertain and matters for climate Any framework for estimating the SCC and optimal miti- policy: higher growth entails more emissions and means more gation effort has two prerequisites with respect to population: people will be vulnerable to climate-related impacts. We show (i) Emissions pressure: Analyses must explicitly account for a that how future population is valued importantly determines mit- range of plausible future population growth rates—which have igation decisions. Using the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy proved difficult to estimate even over relatively short time peri- model, we explore two approaches to valuing population: a dis- ods (4)—and their corresponding links with greenhouse gas counted version of total utilitarianism (TU), which considers total emissions. -
Ex-Ante Prioritarianism Violates Sequential Ex-Ante Pareto*
Ex-Ante Prioritarianism Violates Sequential Ex-Ante Pareto* Johan E. Gustafsson† abstract. Prioritarianism is a variant of utilitarianism. It differs from utilitarianism in that benefiting individuals matters more the worse off these individuals are. On this view, there are two standard ways of han- dling risky prospects: Ex-Post Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off in final outcomes and then values prospects by the expectation of the sum total of those adjusted values, whereas Ex-Ante Prioritarian- ism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off on each individual’s expectation and then values prospects by the sum total of those adjusted expectations. A standard objection to Ex-Post Prioritarianism is that it violates Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes choices that worsen the expectations for every- one. In this paper, I argue that Ex-Ante Prioritarianism suffers from much the same problem: It violates a sequential version of Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes sequences of choices that worsen the expectations for ev- eryone. According to the Priority View, benefiting individuals matters more the worse off these individuals are.1 The most influential version of the view is known as Prioritarianism. It is probably best understood as a variation of utilitarianism, because (except for giving priority to the worse off) Priori- tarianism has the same aggregative structure as utilitarianism. According to utilitarianism, the value of a final outcome (an outcome without any risk or uncertainty) is the sum total of well-being in that outcome. Let 퐼(푥) be the set of individuals in outcome 푥, and let 푣푖(푥) be the well-being of individual 푖 in outcome 푥. -
Prioritarianism and Climate Change
Prioritarianism and Climate Change Maddalena Ferranna and Marc Fleurbaey1 December 2020 Abstract The paper compares utilitarianism and prioritarianism as alternative social welfare frameworks for evaluating climate policies. We review the main debates in the climate policy literature concerning the parameters of the utilitarian social welfare function, and discuss the analytical requirements and climate policy implications of prioritarianism both in deterministic and stochastic settings. We show that, given the specific characteristics of the climate issue and the assumptions routinely made in the climate literature, prioritarianism tends to support more lenient climate policies than undiscounted utilitarianism. This is based on the assumption of economic and social progress that makes the current generation worse-off than future generations. The presence of catastrophic climate outcomes that endanger the living conditions of future generations (or of the poorest individuals living in the future) relaxes this result. Keywords: climate change, prioritiarianism, social cost of carbon, utilitarianism, inequality, climate policy, damage risk JEL Classification numbers: D63, D81, Q54 1 The paper was prepared for inclusion as a chapter in a forthcoming Cambridge University Press volume entitled “Prioritarianism in Practice” edited by Matthew Adler and Ole Norheim. We thank the editors and participants at the Prioritarianism in Practice meetings on May 3-4, 2019 and May 21–22, 2020 for useful comments. Maddalena Ferranna ([email protected]) is affiliated with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Marc Fleurbaey ([email protected]) is affiliated with the Paris School of Economics. 1 1. Introduction Judgements about what is fair and morally defensible play a central role in designing climate policies. -
Introduction: What Is Consequentialism?
Introduction: What is Consequentialism? Other evaluative focal points are possible. We’ll discuss this topic in 1 Questions in Moral Theory session 3. A moral theory might be 3. Does it matter how things objectively are, or how individuals subjec- a theory of virtue: when is an agent morally tively perceive them to be? good/virtuous? (3.1) Objective Consequentialism. The consequences a theory of rightness: when is an action right? which matter are the actual consequences. (Majority opin- a theory of goodness: what makes a state of affairs good? ion.) Consequentialism is normally understood to be a theory of rightness. It (3.2) Subjective Consequentialism. The consequences tells us when an action is right or wrong. which matter are the expected consequences. (Jackson.) 2 Theory of the Right We’ll discuss this topic in session 11. A theory of the right (a deontic theory) tells us how we should classify 4. Do we have to do our best, or do we merely have to do “good actions into the categories of the required, the permissible, and the for- enough”? bidden (or right and wrong). (4.1) Maximising Consequentialism. Only actions or rules which maximise the goodness of consequences are right. 1. Does anything matter aside from consequences? (Majority opinion.) (1.1) Teleology. Rightness (or wrongness) is solely deter- (4.2) Satisficing Consequentialism. All actions or rules mined by the goodness of consequences. (All consequential- which reach a certain threshold of goodness of consequenc- ists accept teleology.) es are right. (Slote.) (1.2) Deontology. There are factors aside from the goodness of consequences which determine rightness and wrongness.