I think the part thatâs the most unacceptable about the repugnant conclusion is that you go from an initial paradise where all the people who exist are perfectly satisfied (in terms of both life goals and hedonics) to a state where thereâs suffering and preference dissatisfaction.
I hesitate to exegete intuitions, but Iâm not convinced this is the story for most. Parfitâs initial statement of the RP didnât stipulate the initial population were âperfectly satisfiedâ but that they âmerelyâ had a âvery high quality of lifeâ (cf.). Moreover, I donât think most people find the RP much less unacceptable if the initial population merely enjoys very high quality of life versus perfect satisfaction.
I agree thereâs some sort intuition that âvery goodâ should be qualitatively better than âbarely better than nothingâ, so one wants to resist being nickel-and-dimed into the latter (cf. critical level util, etc.). I also agree thereâs person-affecting intuitions (although thereâs natural moves like making the addition of A+ also increase the welfare of those originally in A, etc.)
Okay, I agree that going âfrom perfect to flawedâ isnât the core of the intuition.
Moreover, I donât think most people find the RP much less unacceptable if the initial population merely enjoys very high quality of life versus perfect satisfaction.
This seems correct to me too.
I mostly wanted to point out that Iâm pretty sure that itâs a strawman that the repugnant conclusion primarily targets anti-aggregationist intuitions. I suspect that people would also find the conclusion strange if it involved smaller numbers. When a family decides how many kids they have and they estimate that the average quality of life per person in the family (esp. with a lot of weights on the parents themselves) will be highest if they have two children, most people would find it strange to go for five children if that did best in terms of total welfare.
I hesitate to exegete intuitions, but Iâm not convinced this is the story for most. Parfitâs initial statement of the RP didnât stipulate the initial population were âperfectly satisfiedâ but that they âmerelyâ had a âvery high quality of lifeâ (cf.). Moreover, I donât think most people find the RP much less unacceptable if the initial population merely enjoys very high quality of life versus perfect satisfaction.
I agree thereâs some sort intuition that âvery goodâ should be qualitatively better than âbarely better than nothingâ, so one wants to resist being nickel-and-dimed into the latter (cf. critical level util, etc.). I also agree thereâs person-affecting intuitions (although thereâs natural moves like making the addition of A+ also increase the welfare of those originally in A, etc.)
Okay, I agree that going âfrom perfect to flawedâ isnât the core of the intuition.
This seems correct to me too.
I mostly wanted to point out that Iâm pretty sure that itâs a strawman that the repugnant conclusion primarily targets anti-aggregationist intuitions. I suspect that people would also find the conclusion strange if it involved smaller numbers. When a family decides how many kids they have and they estimate that the average quality of life per person in the family (esp. with a lot of weights on the parents themselves) will be highest if they have two children, most people would find it strange to go for five children if that did best in terms of total welfare.