This is not the post I was planning to write. Originally, it was going to be a heroic post where I showed my devotion to philosophical principles by reluctantly but fearlessly biting the bullet on the sadistic conclusion. Except… it turns out to be nothing like that, because the sadistic conclusion is practically void of content and embracing it is trivial. [emphasis mine]
I started writing about how bad his argument is, but then I noticed that in the comments he clarifies that he doesn’t actually embrace the sadistic conclusion, and instead seems to merely think that it’s “not as bad as the repugnant conclusion”, and doesn’t present an overall coherent view on population ethics.
As the author, Stuart, points out, he strongly disagrees with the sadistic conclusion as Rob is describing it:
If a theory implies that merely adding a life not worth living (with no other effects) is an overall improvement, that is a reductio that disproves the theory.
Indeed. But no serious theory of population ethics has that property,
I think the argument for that decision not being “sadistic”, but the least bad option is reasonable if he can win the object level argument.
However, his explanation of why a lot of people living lives worth living is bad is flawed as he constructs people with a life barely worth living, then appeals to their status as an underclass to encourage us to emotively push this below the life worth living line. Unfortunately, any underclass status needs to be included in the utility calculation when it is determined whether or not a life is worth living.
Whatever the problems with the total view, a straight average view is a completely non-starter.
I mean, the sadistic conclusions removes any intuitive appeal immediately.
Note that some clever people disagree with this (http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/02/embracing-the-sadistic-conclusion/):
I started writing about how bad his argument is, but then I noticed that in the comments he clarifies that he doesn’t actually embrace the sadistic conclusion, and instead seems to merely think that it’s “not as bad as the repugnant conclusion”, and doesn’t present an overall coherent view on population ethics.
As the author, Stuart, points out, he strongly disagrees with the sadistic conclusion as Rob is describing it:
I think the argument for that decision not being “sadistic”, but the least bad option is reasonable if he can win the object level argument.
However, his explanation of why a lot of people living lives worth living is bad is flawed as he constructs people with a life barely worth living, then appeals to their status as an underclass to encourage us to emotively push this below the life worth living line. Unfortunately, any underclass status needs to be included in the utility calculation when it is determined whether or not a life is worth living.