Format:
1 Online-Ressource (281 Seiten)
Edition:
1st ed
ISBN:
9780197544150
Content:
M. A. Roberts introduces the newcomer to population ethics and investigates the key issues in a way that will be of interest to professional philosophers, economists, lawyers, and students in all those areas who seek to understand what a cogent, intuitively plausible theory of population will look like. To that end, Roberts presents five perplexing but telling existence puzzles that already are or shall soon become important parts of the population ethics literature: the Asymmetry Puzzle, the Pareto Puzzle, the Addition Puzzle, the Anonymity Puzzle, and the Better Chance Puzzle. Roberts develops solutions to the puzzles that together form a partial theory of population, a collection of principles grounded in intuition but highly sensitive to the formal demands of consistency and cogency
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
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Cover -- The Existence Puzzles -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of principles -- List of cases and figures -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Recent history and current perplexed state of population ethics -- 1.1 Population variability and the inquiry into existential status -- 1.2 The case of Jaime versus Harry -- 1.3 A quick turn back to the traditional total view -- 1.4 More than one way to maximize: Granulation versus aggregation, person-based consequentialism -- 1.5 Are hormones to blame? -- 1.6 Conceptual necessities also puzzle pieces -- more inventive approaches on hold -- 1.7 The puzzle method, the role of intuition, the off ramp -- 1.8 Accessibility relation, connection thesis -- 1.8.1 Distinction between accessible futures and logically possible futures -- 1.8.2 Connection between evaluating choices and comparing futures in respect of moral betterness -- 1.9 Five existence puzzles -- 2 The asymmetry puzzle -- 2.1 The miserable child case, the happy child case, and some intuitions -- 2.2 The puzzle -- 2.3 Attempts to solve the puzzle that go nowhere -- 2.3.1 Moral presentism -- 2.3.2 Moral actualism -- 2.3.3 Moral necessitarianism -- 2.3.4 Moral existencism -- 2.3.5 What has gone wrong? -- 2.4 The existence-sensitive solution to the asymmetry -- 2.4.1 Where existential status matters and where it doesn't -- 2.4.2 The existence condition -- 2.4.3 Application of the existence condition to the asymmetry, the Pareto reduction principle -- 2.4.4 Application of the existence condition to addition plus and double wrongful life -- 2.5 Objections and replies -- 2.5.1 Doesn't the existence-sensitive solution relocate, rather than solve, the puzzle? -- 2.5.2 Doesn't the existence-sensitive solution assume an irrational (ad hoc, arbitrary) distinction? -- 3 The Pareto puzzle -- 3.1 The three option case -- 3.2 The puzzle
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3.3 Attempts to solve the puzzle by tossing out some of the puzzle pieces -- 3.3.1 Reject the basic existential intuition, reject the existence condition -- 3.3.2 Reject transitivity of betterness relation -- 3.3.3 Reject trichotomy in favor of incommensurability -- 3.4 The Pareto minus solution to the Pareto puzzle -- 3.4.1 A skeptical look at the mere addition principle -- 3.4.2 When the additional worth-having existence makes things worse -- 3.5 Objection and reply: Doesn't the Pareto minus solution violate the principle of the independence of irrelevant alternatives? -- 4 The addition puzzle -- 4.1 The puzzle -- 4.2 Why we love addition -- 4.2.1 The raw addition principle, inconsistency with existence condition -- 4.2.2 Obstacles to doing away with addition -- 4.2.3 Summing up -- 4.3 Inversive existence-sensitive solution to the addition puzzle -- 4.3.1 Perennial concerns about the raw addition principle -- 4.3.2 Strategy: Addition without raw addition -- 4.3.3 Implementation: Contributive value and value inversion -- 4.4 Objection and reply: Isn't inversive existence-sensitive addition circular? -- 4.5 Applications of inversive existence-sensitive addition -- 4.5.1 The two paths to zero wellbeing case -- 4.5.2 Infinite population problems -- 4.5.3 The tradeoff to exist case -- 4.6 Wouldn't it be simpler to "minimize aggregate complaints"? -- 5 The anonymity puzzle -- 5.1 Simple and indefinitely iterated addition and reversal -- 5.2 The case of indefinitely iterated addition and reversal -- the puzzle -- 5.3 When the cures are worse than the disease -- 5.3.1 Accept repugnant conclusions across the board -- 5.3.2 Accept anti-natalism -- 5.4 Identity-sensitive solution to the anonymity puzzle -- 5.4.1 Strategy -- 5.4.2 Implementation -- 5.5 Objections and replies
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5.5.1 Wouldn't the mere addition principle provide a simpler way to avoid anti-natalism? -- 5.5.2 Doesn't the identity-sensitive solution imply moral actualism? -- 5.5.3 Isn't unrestricted anonymity itself a critical piece of the puzzle? -- 6 The better chance puzzle -- 6.1 Probability and moral evaluation -- 6.1.1 The better chance case -- 6.1.2 The puzzle -- 6.2 Expected value: The wrong way to make a wrong a right -- 6.2.1 The concept of expected value -- extending the existence condition to take probability into account -- 6.2.2 Avoiding overreach -- 6.2.3 The case of the all-but-known disaster -- 6.3 Probable value: A better way to make a wrong a right -- 6.3.1 A closer look at expected value -- 6.3.2 The concept of probable value -- 6.3.3 Missing results? -- 6.3.4 The probable value solution to the better chance puzzle -- 6.3.5 Summing up -- 6.4 Objections and replies -- 6.4.1 The nonidentity problem -- 6.4.2 The case of the all-but-known success -- 7 Person-based consequentialism: A new way of doing the best we can -- Appendix A: Nonexistence comparability -- Appendix B: The loss distinction thesis -- Appendix C: Broome on the neutrality intuition -- Bibliography -- Index
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe Roberts, M. A. The Existence Puzzles Oxford : Oxford University Press, Incorporated,c2024 ISBN 9780197544143
Language:
English
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