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Very Repugnant Conclusion
Within the field of population ethics, the very repugnant conclusion is a strengthened variant of the repugnant conclusion. It holds that, for any population experiencing very high levels of well-being, certain ethical frameworks—particularly total utilitarianism—may deem it preferable to have a vastly larger population in which most individuals have lives barely worth living, and some experience significant suffering. The total sum of well-being in such a world may outweigh that of the smaller, happier population, thereby rendering it the superior outcome under specific evaluative criteria. This conclusion presents a more severe challenge to moral intuitions than the standard repugnant conclusion, as it appears to conflict with egalitarian and prioritarian values. In response, some philosophers advocate for revisions to prevailing ethical theories rather than accepting such counterintuitive implications. The repugnant conclusion First articulated by philosopher Derek Parfit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Population Ethics
Population ethics is the philosophical study of the ethical problems arising when our actions affect ''who'' is born and ''how many'' people are born in the future. An important area within population ethics is population axiology, which is "the study of the conditions under which one state of affairs is better than another, ''when the states of affairs in question may differ over the numbers and the identities of the persons who ever live''." Moral philosopher Derek Parfit brought population ethics to the attention of the academic community as a modern branch of moral philosophy in his seminal work '' Reasons and Persons'' in 1984. Discussions of population ethics are thus a relatively recent development in the history of philosophy. Formulating a satisfactory theory of population ethics is regarded as "notoriously difficult". While scholars have proposed and debated many different population ethical theories, no consensus in the academic community has emerged. Gustaf Arrhenius ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Repugnant Conclusion
The mere addition paradox (also known as the repugnant conclusion) is a problem in ethics identified by Derek Parfit and discussed in his book ''Reasons and Persons'' (1984). The paradox identifies the mutual incompatibility of four intuitively compelling assertions about the relative value of populations. Parfit’s original formulation of the repugnant conclusion is that "For any perfectly equal population with very high positive welfare, there is a population with very low positive welfare which is better, other things being equal." The paradox Parfit considers four populations, as depicted in the following diagram: A, A+, B− and B. Each bar represents a distinct group of people. The bars' width represents group size while the bar's height represents group happiness. Unlike A and B, A+ and B− are complex populations, each comprising two distinct groups of people. It is also stipulated that the lives of the members of each group are good enough that they would rather be ali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Utilitarianism
Average and total utilitarianism (also called averagism and totalism) are variants of utilitarianism that seek to maximize the average or total amount of utility; following Henry Sidgwick's question, "Is it total or average happiness that we seek to make a maximum?". They are theories of population ethics, a philosophical field that deals with problems arising when our actions affect the number or identity of individuals born in the future. Total utilitarianism Total utilitarianism is a method of applying utilitarianism to a group to work out what the best set of outcomes would be. It assumes that the target utility is the maximum utility across the population based on adding all the separate utilities of each individual together. The main problem for total utilitarianism is the " mere addition paradox", which argues that a likely outcome of following total utilitarianism is a future where there is a large number of people with very low utility values. Parfit terms this "the rep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derek Parfit
Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Parfit rose to prominence in 1971 with the publication of his first paper, "Personal Identity". His first book, ''Reasons and Persons'' (1984), has been described as the most significant work of moral philosophy since the 1800s. His second book, ''On What Matters'' (2011), was widely circulated and discussed for many years before its publication. For his entire academic career, Parfit worked at Oxford University, where he was an Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, All Souls College at the time of his death. He was also a visiting professor of philosophy at Harvard University, New York University, and Rutgers University. He was awarded the 2014 Rolf Schock Prizes, Rolf Schock Prize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quality Of Life
Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns". Standard indicators of the quality of life include wealth, employment, the environment, physical and mental health, education, recreation and leisure time, social belonging, religious beliefs, safety, security and freedom. QOL has a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, politics and employment. Health related QOL (HRQOL) is an evaluation of QOL and its relationship with health. Engaged theory One approach, called the engaged theory, outlined in the journal of ''Applied Research in the Quality of Life'', posits four domains in assessing quality of life: ecology, economics, politics and culture. In the domain of culture, for example, it includes the following subd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" () is a 1973 short work of philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction in 1974 and won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1974. Plot The only chronological element of the work is that it begins by describing the first day of summer in Omelas, a shimmering city of unbelievable happiness and delight. In Omelas, the summer solstice is celebrated with a glorious festival and a race featuring young people on horseback. The vibrant festival atmosphere, however, seems to be an everyday characteristic of the blissful community, whose citizens, though limited in their technology and resources, are still intelligent, sophisticated, and cultured. Omela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Population Ethics
Population ethics is the philosophical study of the ethical problems arising when our actions affect ''who'' is born and ''how many'' people are born in the future. An important area within population ethics is population axiology, which is "the study of the conditions under which one state of affairs is better than another, ''when the states of affairs in question may differ over the numbers and the identities of the persons who ever live''." Moral philosopher Derek Parfit brought population ethics to the attention of the academic community as a modern branch of moral philosophy in his seminal work '' Reasons and Persons'' in 1984. Discussions of population ethics are thus a relatively recent development in the history of philosophy. Formulating a satisfactory theory of population ethics is regarded as "notoriously difficult". While scholars have proposed and debated many different population ethical theories, no consensus in the academic community has emerged. Gustaf Arrhenius ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thought Experiments In Ethics
In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and deliberation. But other mental processes, like considering an idea, memory, or imagination, are also often included. These processes can happen internally independent of the sensory organs, unlike perception. But when understood in the widest sense, any mental event may be understood as a form of thinking, including perception and unconscious mental processes. In a slightly different sense, the term ''thought'' refers not to the mental processes themselves but to mental states or systems of ideas brought about by these processes. Various theories of thinking have been proposed, some of which aim to capture the characteristic features of thought. ''Platonists'' hold that thinking consists in discerning and inspecting Platonic forms and their int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Paradoxes
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions. Historically, many of the individual sciences, such as physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western, Arabic–Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation. Indian philosophy combines the spiritual problem of how to reach enlightenment with the exploration of the nature of reality and the ways of arriving at knowledge. Chinese philosophy focuses principally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
