Abstract

A time‐ and agent‐neutral perfectionism must aggregate values both across times in a life and across persons in a society or in the whole world. This chapter examines a series of ways of doing so, arguing that different principles are attractive given perfectionist rather than nonperfectionist values. It rejects additive principles for implying “repugnant conclusions” that are even more repellent for perfectionist than for other values, and defends a diminishing marginal value view that is intermediate between the additive view and averaging. It also examines Nietzsche's antiegalitarian maximax principle, which says society should maximize the excellence of its few most excellent individuals, and a single‐peak view that values the first achievement of a perfectionist good above any subsequent achievements.