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- Philip Kitcher (2000). Parfit's Puzzle. Noûs 34 (4):550–577.In the brilliant final section of Reasons and Persons , Derek Parfit presents a puzzle about how the goodness of states of affairs relates to the quality of the lives led by people in those states. Stripped to barest essentials, the puzzle runs as follows: if the value of a state is obtained simply by aggregating the quantity of whatever makes life worth living, then a world in which a significant number of people (say ten billion) enjoy lives of very high quality would be inferior to a world in which a vastly greater number of people have lives that are barely worth living (the..No categoriesIn my reading list | Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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Although many people believe that more people would be better, arguments intended to show this are unconvincing. I consider one of Parfit's arguments for a related conclusion, that even when both are worth living, we ought to prefer the better of two lives. Were this argument successful, or so I claim, then it would follow that more people would be better. But there aren't reasons for preferring the better of two lives. Nor is an attempted rejoinder effective. We can agree (...)
In Derek Parfit's original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is characterized as follows: “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). The Repugnant Conclusion highlights a problem in an area of ethics which has become known as population ethics . The (...)
In Derek Parfit's original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is characterized as follows: “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). The Repugnant Conclusion highlights a problem in an area of ethics which has become known as population ethics . The (...)
Things go better for some people than they do for other people. Some people’s lives are quite good; if someone we cared about were to live such a life, this would please us. Other lives are not worth living at all; if there is no prospect for improvement in such a life, it may be rational for the person living it to end it. In virtue of what are such things true? What makes a life a good or a bad (...)
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