Thanks. Although whether increasing the population is a good thing depends of if you are an average utilitarian or a total utilitarian. With more people, both the number of hedons and dolors will increase, with a ratio between hedons to dolors skewed in favor of hedons. If you’re a total utilitarian, the net hedons will be higher with more people, so adding more people is rational. If you’re a total utilitarian, the ratio of hedons to dolors and the average level of happiness per capita will be roughly the same, so adding more people wouldn’t necessarily increase expected utility.
Yes that is true. For what it’s worth most people who have looked into population ethics at all reject average utilitarianism as it has some extremely unintuitive implications like the “sadistic conclusion” whereby one can make things better by bringing into existence people with terrible lives, as long as they’re still bringing up the average wellbeing level by doing so i.e. if existing people have even worse lives.
Thanks. Although whether increasing the population is a good thing depends of if you are an average utilitarian or a total utilitarian. With more people, both the number of hedons and dolors will increase, with a ratio between hedons to dolors skewed in favor of hedons. If you’re a total utilitarian, the net hedons will be higher with more people, so adding more people is rational. If you’re a total utilitarian, the ratio of hedons to dolors and the average level of happiness per capita will be roughly the same, so adding more people wouldn’t necessarily increase expected utility.
Yes that is true. For what it’s worth most people who have looked into population ethics at all reject average utilitarianism as it has some extremely unintuitive implications like the “sadistic conclusion” whereby one can make things better by bringing into existence people with terrible lives, as long as they’re still bringing up the average wellbeing level by doing so i.e. if existing people have even worse lives.