Red team:What non-arbitrary views in population axiology do avoid the “Very Repugnant Conclusion” (VRC)?
Context/Explanation:
According to Budolfson & Spears (2018), “the VRC cannot be avoided by any leading welfarist axiology despite prior consensus in the literature to the contrary”, and “[the extended] VRC cannot be avoided by any other welfarist axiology in the literature.”
Yet surely we need not limit our views to the ones that were included in their analysis.
Bonus points if the team scrutinizes some assumptions that are commonly taken as unquestioned starting points, such as additive aggregationism, impersonal compensation, or independent positive value.
(By “non-arbitrary”, I mean that the views would be attractive for other reasons besides avoiding the VRC.)
I think there are plenty of views which avoid the original VRC, basically any that avoids the original repugnant conclusion, including average utilitarianism, maximin, rank-discounted utilitarianism, person-affecting views, etc.. For the extended VRC, I would recommend the contractualist Scanlon’s “Greater Burden Principle”, or the deontological animal rights theorist Regan’s “harm principle”, both according to which (from my understanding) a greater individual burden or harm to one should be prioritized over any number lesser burdens or harms to others, all else equal, as well as principles for “limited aggregation” which allow some aggregation when comparing burdens or harms of sufficiently similar severity or “relevance”. These are different from lexical views, maximin, etc., in that that they aim to minimize the largest loss in welfare, not necessarily improve the welfare of the worst off individual or experience, or ensure everyone’s welfare is above some lexical threshold.
Scanlon, T. M., Sen, A., & Williams, B. (1982). Contractualism and utilitarianism.
Red team: What non-arbitrary views in population axiology do avoid the “Very Repugnant Conclusion” (VRC)?
Context/Explanation:
According to Budolfson & Spears (2018), “the VRC cannot be avoided by any leading welfarist axiology despite prior consensus in the literature to the contrary”, and “[the extended] VRC cannot be avoided by any other welfarist axiology in the literature.”
Yet surely we need not limit our views to the ones that were included in their analysis.
Bonus points if the team scrutinizes some assumptions that are commonly taken as unquestioned starting points, such as additive aggregationism, impersonal compensation, or independent positive value.
(By “non-arbitrary”, I mean that the views would be attractive for other reasons besides avoiding the VRC.)
I think there are plenty of views which avoid the original VRC, basically any that avoids the original repugnant conclusion, including average utilitarianism, maximin, rank-discounted utilitarianism, person-affecting views, etc.. For the extended VRC, I would recommend the contractualist Scanlon’s “Greater Burden Principle”, or the deontological animal rights theorist Regan’s “harm principle”, both according to which (from my understanding) a greater individual burden or harm to one should be prioritized over any number lesser burdens or harms to others, all else equal, as well as principles for “limited aggregation” which allow some aggregation when comparing burdens or harms of sufficiently similar severity or “relevance”. These are different from lexical views, maximin, etc., in that that they aim to minimize the largest loss in welfare, not necessarily improve the welfare of the worst off individual or experience, or ensure everyone’s welfare is above some lexical threshold.
Scanlon, T. M., Sen, A., & Williams, B. (1982). Contractualism and utilitarianism.
Regan, T. (1985). THE DOG IN THE LIFEBOAT-AN EXCHANGE. New York Review of Books, 32(7), 56-57.
“limited aggregation” on Google Scholar.