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Incommensurability, the sequence argument, and the Pareto principle
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy. Institute for Futures Studies, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5031-505x
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy. Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, Sweden; Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8382-1802
Number of Authors: 22024 (English)In: Philosophical Studies, ISSN 0031-8116, E-ISSN 1573-0883, Vol. 181, no 12, p. 3395-3411Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Parfit (Theoria 82:110–127, 2016) responded to the Sequence Argument for the Repugnant Conclusion by introducing imprecise equality. However, Parfit’s notion of imprecise equality lacked structure. Hájek and Rabinowicz (2022) improved on Parfit’s proposal in this regard, by introducing a notion of degrees of incommensurability. Although Hájek and Rabinowicz’s proposal is a step forward, and may help solve many paradoxes, it can only avoid the Repugnant Conclusion at great cost. First, there is a sequential argument for the Repugnant Conclusion that uses weaker and intuitively more compelling assumptions than the Sequence Argument, and which Hájek and Rabinowicz’s proposal only undermines, in a principled way, by allowing for implausible weight to be put on the disvalue of inequality. Second, if Hájek and Rabinowicz do put such implausible weight on the disvalue of inequality, then they will have to accept that a population A is not worse than another same sized population B even though everyone in B is better off than anyone in A.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2024. Vol. 181, no 12, p. 3395-3411
Keywords [en]
Incommensurability, Levelling down objection, Pareto principle, Population ethics, Repugnant conclusion
National Category
Ethics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-239094DOI: 10.1007/s11098-024-02191-xISI: 001316757500001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85204306996OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-239094DiVA, id: diva2:1935548
Available from: 2025-02-07 Created: 2025-02-07 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

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Arrhenius, GustafStefánsson, H. Orri

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