2. If the additional people would certainly have good lives, it is permissible but not required to create them
is this second part usually stated so strongly, even in a straight choice between two options? Normally I only see “not required”, not also “permissible”, but then again, I don’t normally see it as a comparison of two choices only. This rules out average utilitarianism, critical-level utilitarianism, negative utilitarianism, maximin and many other theories which may say that it’s sometimes bad to create people with overall good lives, all else equal. Actually, basically any value-monistic consequentialist theory which is complete, transitive and satisfies the independence of irrelevant alternatives and non-antiegalitarianism, and avoids the repugnant conclusion is ruled out.
Regarding the definition of the Asymmetry,
is this second part usually stated so strongly, even in a straight choice between two options? Normally I only see “not required”, not also “permissible”, but then again, I don’t normally see it as a comparison of two choices only. This rules out average utilitarianism, critical-level utilitarianism, negative utilitarianism, maximin and many other theories which may say that it’s sometimes bad to create people with overall good lives, all else equal. Actually, basically any value-monistic consequentialist theory which is complete, transitive and satisfies the independence of irrelevant alternatives and non-antiegalitarianism, and avoids the repugnant conclusion is ruled out.