Derek Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion (Population Ethics)

This video is a simple and easy explanation of Derek Parfit's Repugnant conclusion, which poses a problem for population ethics. It is based on the Impersonal Total Principle regarding maximizing total quality of life.

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Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!

Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!

[DaedricGamingHD]

This video was exstreamly useful i was reading the repugnant conclusion again n again tryjng to get my head round what was meant but the way its worded dosent do it any favours thanks man

[jolssoni]

@Carneades What's your take on antifrustrationism (and by extension. antinatalism) as a solution to this and related problems of population ethics, Theory x etc?

[cherokeelittletreeg]

Misery has always loved company and always will.

[cliffordhodge]

My approach would be to follow a rule that says any changes made in laws, social policies, etc. must be such as to benefit the least well off, whatever else they may do.  So if my well-being can be raised one point by an action that raises those of the very well-off by 20 points, no one has grounds for complaint.  I don't like the Impersonal Total approach, because it seems to assume that my well-being or ill-being is somehow commensurate with that of everyone else.  Quality of life - happiness or unhappiness, pleasure or suffering - is not something of which I can say, "His happiness offsets their unhappiness, " or, "My pain is negated or compensated for by my later pleasure."  There is an asymmetry between good/happy/pleasure and evil/bad/pain  There is also an assumption here that quality of life can be more or less precisely measured - at least for theoretical purposes.  If that is so, it makes no sense to then assume unfairness, or a perception thereof, throws things out of whack.  Whatever effect it has is quantified and so it need not be talked about as if it were some special unmeasured factor.  If I am given $10 while you are given $100, I may be somewhat miffed that you received more,  but I am nonetheless better off with the $10 than with nothing.  How miffed I am is reflected in the net change in my happiness, so the unfairness has already been figured in as a factor.  Also, the Impersonal Total paradigm begs the question that existence or quantity of people is a value, but well-being must be measured person by person, and one who does not exist cannot count somehow as a failure to be as good as the one who does exist.  So if you take a strict mathematical model, it would seem the small group of extremely well-off persons is best.  Otherwise you need to stipulate how many well-being points are assigned for simple existence.

[Cy]

What as that quote about statistics? & it also calls to mind the family averages including point something of a child. Statistical tools can only take you so far.

[Ansatz]

Surely the source of confusion here is in the confusion of assigning numbers to quality of life. It's hard to dispute that if we doubled the population while maintaining the same quality of life for everyone, then that would be twice as good, but suppose we wanted to maintain constant goodness by doubling the population and halving the quality of life. Would that really be just as good? We would need to figure out what exactly it means to halve the quality of life.

Just try to imagine a life with half the quality of your life, or a life with double the quality. What exactly would a life with zero quality look like? We must first figure out an arithmetic of quality before we can figure out the true meaning of the impersonal total principle. Perhaps the repugnant conclusion isn't as bad as it seems.

[FairnessIsTheAnswer]

The ultimate moral standard is to have no existence of evil in all of existence. Any other standard that allows for the existence of evil, also allows for the possibility of justifying the existence of evil. The argument would be that evil is an unfortunate and inevitable consequence of life with freewill, and therefore some degree of evil must be accepted as inevitable. If by its very essence, morality must be an absolute and uncompromised standard then there is no other choice than moral absolutism. And therefore the only way to achieve the ultimate moral victory is to have no evil in all of existence. This is obviously not the situation that currently exists, and whether the eradication of all evil in all of existence for all of eternity is possible or not, I don’t know. But that would be my goal regardless of whether it’s possible or not.

[jameswest]

I looked on your twitter and didn't see any more details. What's going on, why are you being forced to leave the country?

[davidrichardson]

We are using unreflectively a direct correlation between a higher population and a lower quality of life. OK, so let me suggest going the other direction in an equally unreflective manner. That should also be revealing and equally repugnant. So let's continue to reduce the population in order to maximize the quality of life. All things being equal, we should be able to maximize infinitely the quality of life simply by reducing the human population to zero. Were we to do that, happiness and equality would be bursting out all over. Moreover, we would never again have to worry about the other side of the equation. We would have permanently banished unfairness and despair. In this new world, we would never hear a report of either. Now, that is a utopia that we can all get behind.

[mclay]

What I despise about these theoretical assumptions is that they are perpetual and non-fluctuating. These A or B propositions never take into consideration of Q, Q being the wild card of living in nature. A better situation for the perceived long-term is a larger group benefiting, but not all nor a minority.

[ganosgal]

the repugnant conclusion has implications in political economy.

[fuckyoutubengoogle]

Carneades, you should record in a better acoustic environment.