Abstract
Recently, Derek Parfit has offered a novel solution to the “Repugnant Conclusion” that compared with the existence of many people whose quality of life would be very high, there is some much larger number of people whose existence would be better but whose lives would be barely worth living. On this solution, qualitative differences between two populations will often entail that the populations are merely “imprecisely” comparable. According to Parfit, this fact allows us to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion without violating the transitivity of better than. In this paper, I argue that Parfit’s view nevertheless implies two objectionable conclusions. The first is an alternative version of the Repugnant Conclusion that, Parfit suggests, may not be all that repugnant. The second is a revised version of the first that is nearly identical to the Repugnant Conclusion. I conclude that Parfit’s view offers no escape from repugnance.
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Notes
This combines two formulations of the view in Parfit (2016, pp. 110, 112).
This is introduced in Parfit (1984, p. 388), though its formulation there is implied by the “total” Utilitarian principle according to which the best state of affairs (ceteris paribus) is the one containing the greatest total amount of utility. Since this conclusion also seems to be implied by the Simple View, we cannot avoid it simply by rejecting the total principle. So it presents a worry for, not just Utilitarians, but anyone that accepts the more plausible Simple View.
Of course, some people reject the transitivity of better than, and so avoid this conclusion. See, for example, Rachels (1998), and Temkin (1987, 1996). Given these people reject such an intuitive and widely accepted relation, though, it is perhaps unsurprising that they face more pressing worries than the Repugnant Conclusion. See, for example, Nebel (2017). See also Jensen (2008) and Voorhoeve (2013).
Notice, though, that combining these views forces a change in the Simple View: since some number of A-lives is better than any number of Z-lives, it follows that there is, in fact, some upper limit to the value of Z-lives—in particular, whatever value the relevant number of A-lives has. That is, since there is some value that cannot be surpassed by the value of any number of Z-lives, it follows that there is, in this sense, some upper limit to the value of the Z-lives. So, if lexical views are to be combined with the Simple View, the latter must be amended to leave out talk of the nonexistence of any upper limit. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to make this point clear.
A similar point is made in more general terms by Arrhenius and Rabinowicz (2005).
For more on this, see Arrhenius and Rabinowicz (2005).
In other words, these things are cardinally comparable, but not by some number of units on a relevant scale. See Chang (2016).
Parfit (2016, p. 113).
If there is no population in which the lives are lexically better than those in an adjacent population, how exactly is this lexical superiority supposed to arise? Here is how I understand Parfit’s suggestion. Along the continuum from A to Z, there are ranges of populations, each of which is such that the populations within it are imprecisely equally good, and these ranges are bounded by ranges where is it indeterminate whether one of its populations is better than another or the two populations are imprecisely equally good. Thus it might be, for instance, that the lives in P are not lexically better than the lives in Q, which are not lexically better than the lives in R, yet the lives in P are lexically better than the lives in Z. In this case, P, Q, and R are in a range of populations which are imprecisely equally good, and this range is bounded by a range—which includes P, Q, R, S … and W—where it is indeterminate whether one of its populations is better than another or the two populations are imprecisely equally good. Still, it might be that W, X, Y, and Z are in a range of populations which are imprecisely equally good. As we can see, these ranges overlap such that no population contains lives that are lexically better than those in an adjacent population, and yet the lives in P (and, so, A) are lexically better than those in Z.
See Parfit (2004, pp. 17–20).
This alternative version of Z is introduced in Portmore (1999, pp. 81–82).
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pressing this objection.
Of course, this analogy might seem to break down when we consider other sorts of cases. It might be, for example, that pain of a certain intensity is experienced first for 10 s, and then once more for 20 min. In this case, we might think differently as to whether it would be better if, rather than one person having both of these experiences, one person had the first experience while 120 others had equal parts of the second. This is because, it might be thought, after, say, 10 min of this type of pain, the experience becomes worse in a way that is not attributable to the cumulative number of seconds involved. Notice, however, that this suggestion requires a qualitative difference between the types of pain involved in the two experiences. That is, this suggestion might find evaluative imprecision between the imagined outcomes, but only by assuming that there is also a qualitative difference between them—in particular, a difference in the type of pain experienced. Since the argument that I’ve presented concerns only those cases that hold fixed the qualitative features of the outcomes, this suggestion presents no threat to the argument. More generally, I suspect that any ostensible evaluative imprecision that arises between populations whose quality of life is held fixed must be attributable to an implicitly assumed difference between the quality of those lives. Otherwise, as I see it, such evaluative imprecision cannot arise. And so it cannot arise, in particular, on the continuum from A to Short-lived Z.
Here is another way of looking at it. Given the lives in these populations would be qualitatively identical, there would be no way of determining which of the two types of life one was living. Thus, just as our own lives may have started within the last minute—all memories from before this having been implanted—so the lives in Short-lived Z may (and, indeed, must) have started within the last minute. And, thus, just as this does not restrict the quality of our lives, so it does not restrict the quality of the lives in Short-lived Z.
Alternatively: add one drab day to each of the lives in Short-lived Z, and repeat until one hundred drab years have been added.
When Parfit considers a similar conclusion, he claims that this conclusion is “hard to believe” but still “less repugnant” than the Repugnant Conclusion (2004, p. 19). Accordingly, it seems Parfit’s view has an implication that he himself wishes to avoid (though perhaps one he would ultimately be willing to tolerate).
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this.
In fact, if we apply a plausible Pareto principle here, we have an argument in favor of preferring Short-lived Z+ to Short-lived Z. See Huemer (2008, p. 903).
It is perhaps worth mentioning that we are prone to a particular bias that might explain this intuition. Specifically, we tend to undervalue the duration of lives when assessing their desirability by focusing on their average level, rather than total sum, of happiness. This suggests that we are likely to judge some lives, such as those in Short-lived Z+, to be less desirable than other lives, such as those in Short-lived Z, despite the fact that the former just are the latter plus an additional duration of happy life. See Diener et al. (2001); and for discussion, see Kahneman (2011, pp. 386–388).
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Doug Portmore and several anonymous reviewers for most helpful comments.
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Fanciullo, J. Imprecise lexical superiority and the (slightly less) Repugnant Conclusion. Philos Stud 176, 2103–2117 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1117-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1117-4