Low-welfare confinement: Barely-positive-welfare value-bearers occupy a small enough region of the landscape, or are sparse enough and illuminate only a small enough neighbourhood around them, or both, such that the total value that can be contributed by barely-positive-welfare value-bearers is strictly smaller than the total value that can be contributed by more-than-barely-positive-welfare value-bearers.
This kind of statement seems like philosophical wishful thinking: it makes an arbitrary assumption about what is possible in order to avoid an uncomfortable conclusion about what is preferable (the Repugnant Conclusion). It simply asserts without justification that the space of low-welfare variety is small.
This isn’t just an innocent modeling choice, nor is it an axiom of the Saturationism axiology itself; it’s a substantive claim about reality inserted to make the axiology work. By stipulating that low-welfare value-bearers occupy a confined region of the conceptual landscape, we are forcing a physical constraint onto the universe without providing any physical or empirical justification for it.
Why should we accept this asymmetry? It seems equally plausible that barely-positive-welfare lives could manifest in a greater diversity of configurations than high-welfare lives. Without a robust justification for why the low-welfare landscape is uniquely restricted, this constraint just looks like an ad hoc mathematical patch to save the axiology from the Repugnant Conclusion.
A different objection:
This kind of statement seems like philosophical wishful thinking: it makes an arbitrary assumption about what is possible in order to avoid an uncomfortable conclusion about what is preferable (the Repugnant Conclusion). It simply asserts without justification that the space of low-welfare variety is small.
This isn’t just an innocent modeling choice, nor is it an axiom of the Saturationism axiology itself; it’s a substantive claim about reality inserted to make the axiology work. By stipulating that low-welfare value-bearers occupy a confined region of the conceptual landscape, we are forcing a physical constraint onto the universe without providing any physical or empirical justification for it.
Why should we accept this asymmetry? It seems equally plausible that barely-positive-welfare lives could manifest in a greater diversity of configurations than high-welfare lives. Without a robust justification for why the low-welfare landscape is uniquely restricted, this constraint just looks like an ad hoc mathematical patch to save the axiology from the Repugnant Conclusion.