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without thereby sacrifi cing anything of comparable moral importance, we |
ought, morally, to do it. By “ without sacrifi cing anything of comparable moral |
importance ” I mean without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, |
or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral |
good, comparable in signifi cance to the bad thing that we can prevent. This |
principle seems almost as uncontroversial as the last one [ . . . but . . . ] The |
uncontroversial appearance of the principle just stated is deceptive. If it were |
acted upon [ . . . ] our lives, our society, and our world would be fundamentally |
changed. [ . . . ] The traditional distinction between duty and charity cannot |
be drawn, or at least, not in the place we normally draw it. [ . . . ] When we |
buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm but to look “ well - dressed ” we |
are not providing for any important need. We would not be sacrifi cing anything |
signifi cant if we were to continue to wear our old clothes, and give the |
money to famine relief. By doing so, we would be preventing another person |
from starving. It follows from what I have said earlier that we ought to give |
money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need to keep |
us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act |
which philosophers and theologians have called “ supererogatory ” – an act |
which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we |
ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so. (Singer “ Famine, ” |
231 – 5) |
P1. Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are |
bad. |
P2. If it is in one ’ s power to prevent something bad from happening, without |
thereby sacrifi cing anything of comparable moral importance, one ought, |
morally, to do it. |
C1. If it is in one ’ s power to prevent suffering and death from lack of |
food, shelter, and medical care, without thereby sacrifi cing anything |
of comparable moral importance, one ought, morally, to do it (instantiation |
& modus ponens , P1, P2). |
P3. By giving money to humanitarian aid agencies, one can prevent suffering |
and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care. |
246 Joakim Sandberg |
C2. If one can give money to humanitarian aid agencies without thereby |
sacrifi cing anything of comparable moral importance (to suffering and |
death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care) one ought, morally, |
to do it (instantiation and modus ponens , C1, P3). |
P4. We can give a substantial amount of our money away by simply giving |
up buying things that we do not really need; that is, without sacrifi cing |
anything of moral importance comparable to suffering and death from |
lack of food, shelter, and medical care. |
C3. We ought, morally, to give a substantial amount of our money to |
humanitarian aid agencies ( modus ponens , C2, P4). |
64 |
The Repugnant Conclusion |
Joakim Sandberg |
Parfi t , Derek. Reasons and Persons . Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1984 . |
Ryberg , Jesper , and Torbj ö rn T ä nnsj ö (eds.). The Repugnant Conclusion: |
Essays on Population Ethics . Dordrecht : Kluwer , 2004 . |
When philosophers think about future generations and what sort of world |
we should try to create, they sometimes ponder issues in so - called population |
ethics. For example, “ Would it be better if, in the future, a greater |
rather than fewer number of people lived? ” and “ Does the answer to this |
question depend further on who these people are and/or their quality of |
life? ” The seminal work in this fi eld is Derek Parfi t ’ s Reasons and Persons , |
and the present argument is its undisputed highlight. The argument addresses |
the issue of what the relative values are of the quantity of lives lived versus |
the quality of these lives and a seemingly straightforward position on this |
issue – the position that classical utilitarians take – is that quantity and |
quality should be given equal value. |
Utilitarians typically compound these two factors into a measure of the |
overall utility, or “ quantity of whatever makes life worth living, ” in a population. |
Parfi t ’ s argument against this view, however, takes the form of a |
reductio ad absurdum : If any loss in the quality of lives can be compensated |
for by a suffi cient increase in the quantity of lives lived, then the best |
outcome could well be one in which an enormous amount of people lived |
lives that are barely worth living. This is what Parfi t calls the “ Repugnant |
Conclusion. ” Many ways of trying to get around the conclusion can be |
found in the literature. However, it may be noted that it has been surprisingly |
diffi cult to develop a theory that avoids this conclusion and at the |
same time doesn ’ t imply equally counterintuitive conclusions. The fi eld of |
population ethics thus continues to be challenging. |
Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, |
First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone. |
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. |
248 Joakim Sandberg |
In B there are twice as many people living as in A, and these people are |
all worse off than everyone in A. But the lives of those in B, compared with |
those in A, are more than half as much worth living. [ . . . ] Which would be |
the better outcome? [ . . . ] I can now state the [ . . . ] Impersonal Total Principle: |
If other things are equal, the best outcome is the one in which there would |
be the greatest quantity of whatever makes life worth living. [ . . . ] Z is some |
enormous population whose members have lives that are not much above the |
level where life ceases to be worth living. [ . . . ] In each of these lives there is |
very little happiness. But, if the numbers are large enough, this is the outcome |
with the greatest total sum of happiness. [ . . . ] The Impersonal Total Principle |
then implies The Repugnant Conclusion: 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. As my choice of name suggests, I fi nd this conclusion very hard to |
accept. [ . . . ] If we are convinced that Z is worse than A, we have strong |
grounds for resisting principles which imply that Z is better. We have strong |
grounds for resisting the Impersonal Total Principle. (Parfi t, 385 – 90) |
P1. The “ quantity of whatever makes life worth living ” in a given population |
is a function of the quantity of its members and their quality of life. |
P2. One can increase the quantity of whatever makes life worth living in a |
given population by simply adding people whose lives are worth living. |
P3. If in one of two outcomes the quality of lives in a population is lower, |
the quantity of whatever makes life worth living can still be higher if |
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