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Critical Levels and the (Reverse) Repugnant Conclusion

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Author Info
Charles Blackorby
Walter Bossert, David Donaldson,
Marc Fleurbaey

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Abstract

It is well-known that there is a trade-off regarding the properties of population principles that are used to make social evaluations when the number of people in the society under consideration may vary. The commonly used principles either lead to the repugnant conclusion (which is the case for classical utilitarianism), or they violate the Pareto plus principle and related properties (average utilitarianism is an example of such a principle). This paper examines the nature of this trade-off and shows that the incompatibility between avoiding the repugnant conclusion and the Pareto plus principle is fundamental and not restricted to the commonly

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by UBC Department of Economics in its series Old UBC Departmental Papers with number 9710.

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Length: 14 pages
Date of creation: Feb 1997
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Handle: RePEc:ubc:bcecwp:9710

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Related research
Keywords: population ethics; repugnant conclusion; critical levels;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter & Donaldson, David, 1995. "Intertemporal Population Ethics: Critical-Level Utilitarian Principles," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich.
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  2. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter & Donaldson, David, 1997. "Birth-Date Dependent Population Ethics: Critical-Level Principles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 260-284, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1984. "Social criteria for evaluating population change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 13-33, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Ng, Yew-Kwang, 1986. "Social criteria for evaluating population change: An alternative to the Blackorby-Donaldson criterion," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 375-381, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. 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. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 2006-15, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques. [Downloadable!]
  3. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2001. "The Axiomatic Approach to Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 2001-06, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Ritxar Arlegi & Miguel Angel Ballester & María del Carmen Marco & Jorge Nieto, 2000. "Variable population egalitarian ethics and the critical-level: A note," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 0013, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra. [Downloadable!]
  5. BOSSERT, Walter, 2006. "Consistent Relations," Cahiers de recherche 2006-03, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques. [Downloadable!]
  6. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2002. "Critical-Level Population Principles and the Repugnant Conclusion," Cahiers de recherche 2002-15, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter & Donaldson, David, 2000. "Population Principles with Number-Dependent Critical Levels," Working Papers 2000-06, Rice University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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