IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/utilit/v33y2021i4p379-383_1.html

What Should We Agree on about the Repugnant Conclusion?

Author

Listed:
  • 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, Michal
  • MacAskill, William
  • Lawson, Nicholas
  • Kuruc, Kevin
  • Hutchinson, Michelle
  • Gustafsson, Johan E.
  • Greaves, Hilary
  • Forsberg, Lisa
  • Fleurbaey, Marc
  • Coffey, Diane
  • Cato, Susumu
  • Castro, Clinton
  • Campbell, Tim
  • Budolfson, Mark
  • Broome, John
  • Berger, Alexander
  • Beckstead, Nick
  • Asheim, Geir B.

Abstract

The Repugnant Conclusion is an implication of some approaches to population ethics. It states, in Derek Parfit's original formulation, For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a 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 that are barely worth living. (Parfit 1984: 388)

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:utilit:v:33:y:2021:i:4:p:379-383_1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S095382082100011X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Spears, Dean & Stefánsson, H. Orri, 2021. "Additively-separable and rank-discounted variable-population social welfare functions: A characterization," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    4. Stawasz, Andrew & Bressler, R. Daniel, 2025. "Valuing statistical absences? Why benefit-cost analysis cannot avoid population ethics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    5. Urmee Khan & Maxwell B. Stinchcombe, 2025. "Intergenerational equity and sustainability: a large population approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 65(4), pages 765-803, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cup:utilit:v:33:y:2021:i:4:p:379-383_1. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/uti .

    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.