IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v232y2023ics0165176523003312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A new result on the impossibility of avoiding both the repugnant and sadistic conclusions

Author

Listed:
  • Cato, Susumu
  • Harada, Ko

Abstract

This paper establishes a new impossibility result for welfaristic evaluations when the population varies. We consider a weak version of the repugnant conclusion instead of the commonly used version. It is shown that if a population principle satisfying two reasonable properties avoids the sadistic conclusion, then the weak repugnant conclusion must hold. We use a general variable-population setting where the identities of individuals can matter.

Suggested Citation

  • Cato, Susumu & Harada, Ko, 2023. "A new result on the impossibility of avoiding both the repugnant and sadistic conclusions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:232:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523003312
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111306
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176523003312
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111306?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blackorby,Charles & Bossert,Walter & Donaldson,David J., 2005. "Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521532587.
    2. 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, Mic, 2021. "What Should We Agree on about the Repugnant Conclusion?," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 379-383, December.
    3. Cato, Susumu, 2023. "When is weak Pareto equivalent to strong Pareto?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    4. , B. & ,, 2014. "Escaping the repugnant conclusion: rank-discounted utilitarianism with variable population," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(3), September.
    5. Dean Spears & Mark Budolfson, 2021. "Repugnant conclusions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(3), pages 567-588, October.
    6. Dean Spears & Mark Budolfson, 2021. "Correction to: Repugnant conclusions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(3), pages 589-589, October.
    7. Franz, Nathan & Spears, Dean, 2020. "Mere Addition is equivalent to avoiding the Sadistic Conclusion in all plausible variable-population social orderings," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    8. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson & Marc Fleurbaey, 1998. "Critical levels and the (reverse) repugnant conclusion," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 67(1), pages 1-15, February.
    9. Marcus Pivato, 2020. "Rank-additive population ethics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(4), pages 861-918, June.
    10. Arrhenius, Gustaf, 2000. "An Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 247-266, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Walter Bossert & Susumu Cato & Kohei Kamaga, 2023. "Thresholds, critical levels, and generalized sufficientarian principles," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 1099-1139, May.
    2. Dean Spears & Mark Budolfson, 2021. "Repugnant conclusions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(3), pages 567-588, October.
    3. 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.
    4. Spears, Dean & Stefánsson, H. Orri, 2021. "Additively-separable and rank-discounted variable-population social welfare functions: A characterization," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    5. Franz, Nathan & Spears, Dean, 2020. "Mere Addition is equivalent to avoiding the Sadistic Conclusion in all plausible variable-population social orderings," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    6. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 2006-15, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
      • BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 14-2006, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    7. Geir B. Asheim & Stéphane Zuber, 2017. "Rank-discounting as a resolution to a dilemma in population ethics," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 17041, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    8. Stéphane Zuber, 2018. "Population-adjusted egalitarianism," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01937766, HAL.
    9. Spears, Dean & Budolfson, Mark, 2019. "Why Variable-Population Social Orderings Cannot Escape the Repugnant Conclusion: Proofs and Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 12668, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. BOSSERT, Walter, 2006. "Consistent Relations," Cahiers de recherche 2006-03, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    11. Christian Tarsney & Teruji Thomas, 2020. "Non-Additive Axiologies in Large Worlds," Papers 2010.06842, arXiv.org.
    12. Claudio Zoli, 2009. "Variable population welfare and poverty orderings satisfying replication properties," Working Papers 69/2009, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    13. Donaldson, David & Pendakur, Krishna, 2015. "Applications of Population Principles: A Note," Economics working papers david_donaldson-2015-22, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 03 Sep 2015.
    14. Marcus Pivato, 2020. "Rank-additive population ethics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(4), pages 861-918, June.
    15. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2003. "The Axiomatic Approach to Population Ethics," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 2(3), pages 342-381, October.
    16. Asheim, Geir B. & Zuber, Stéphane, 2016. "Evaluating intergenerational risks," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 104-117.
    17. de la Croix, David & Doepke, Matthias, 2021. "A soul’s view of the optimal population problem," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 98-108.
    18. 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.
    19. Boucekkine, R. & Fabbri, G. & Gozzi, F., 2014. "Egalitarianism under population change: Age structure does matter," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 86-100.
    20. 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.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:232:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523003312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.