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Critical-Level Utilitarianism and the Population-Ethics Dilemma

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  • Blackorby, Charles
  • Bossert, Walter
  • Donaldson, David

Abstract

Advances in technology have made it possible for us to take actions that affect the numbers and identities of humans and other animals that will live in the future. Effective and inexpensive birth control, child allowances, genetic screening, safe abortion, in vitro fertilization, the education of young women, sterilization programs, environmental degradation and war all have these effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter & Donaldson, David, 1997. "Critical-Level Utilitarianism and the Population-Ethics Dilemma," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 197-230, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:13:y:1997:i:02:p:197-230_00
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Dasgupta, P., 2016. "Birth and Death," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1660, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2003. "Population Ethics and the Value of Life," Cahiers de recherche 05-2003, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    3. Aurélie Méjean & Antonin Pottier & Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Zuber, 2020. "Catastrophic climate change, population ethics and intergenerational equity," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 873-890, November.
    4. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2007. "Variable-population extensions of social aggregation theorems," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 28(4), pages 567-589, June.
    5. Yves Arrighi & Mohammad Abu‐Zaineh & Bruno Ventelou, 2015. "To Count or Not to Count Deaths: Reranking Effects in Health Distribution Evaluation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 193-205, February.
    6. Claudio Zoli, 2009. "Variable population welfare and poverty orderings satisfying replication properties," Working Papers 69/2009, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    7. Mainwaring, Lynn, 2004. "Comparing futures: a positional approach to population ethics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 345-357, March.
    8. Domenico Moramarco & François Maniquet, 2022. "On the measurement of well-being with reference consumption," Working Papers 629, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    9. Brown, Campbell, 2023. "Better than nothing: on defining the valence of a life," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120063, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Christian Tarsney & Teruji Thomas, 2020. "Non-Additive Axiologies in Large Worlds," Papers 2010.06842, arXiv.org.
    11. Charles BLACKORBY & Walter BOSSERT & David DONALDSON, 2002. "Critical-Level Population Principles And The Repugnant Conclusion," Cahiers de recherche 15-2002, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    12. Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 1998. "La comparación de distribuciones de renta en un contexto dinámico: dificultades y perspectivas," DE - Documentos de Trabajo. Economía. DE 3886, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    13. Kohei Kamaga, 2016. "Infinite-horizon social evaluation with variable population size," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(1), pages 207-232, June.
    14. Marc Fleurbaey, 2002. "Retraites, générations et catégories sociales : de l'équité comme contrainte à l'équité comme objectif," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 68(4), pages 91-111.
    15. Leslie Shiell, 2008. "The Repugnant Conclusion and Utilitarianism under Domain Restrictions," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(6), pages 1011-1031, December.
    16. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2002. "Population Principles with Number‐Dependent Critical Levels," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(3), pages 347-368, July.
    17. François Maniquet & Domenico Moramarco, 2022. "On the Measurement of Well-Being with Reference Consumption," Working Papers ECARES 2022-41, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

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