
The Repugnant Conclusion (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) - lisper
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/
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meri_dian
<From Section 1>"A straightforward way of capturing the No-Difference View is
total utilitarianism according to which the best outcome is the one in which
there would be the greatest quantity of whatever makes life worth living
(Parfit 1984 p. 387). However, this view implies that any loss in the quality
of lives in a population can be compensated for by a sufficient gain in the
quantity of a population"

Well yes, but while 'total utility' may be a relevant measure for a
population, populations in the aggregate do not have conscious experience.
Therefore 'total utility' is irrelevant for the individual. It's a very poor
measure of the 'quality' of a society.

A much better (and more intuitively appealing) measure incorporates 'total
utility' but divides it by population to get average utility. If we take this
as our guiding measure then we aren't forced to reach The Repugnant
Conclusion.

But on second thought, this also presents a problem. Because then we could
posit a world in which most of the population lives in misery but a small
percentage lives wonderful, fulfilling 'maximum utility' lives. Average
utility as I've described it would favor some of these these worlds - given a
large enough population - over ones in which there's a more even distribution
of utility.

Therefore let's take a page from economics and incorporate a GINI Coefficient
measure of utility into our consideration of an ideal world. This should
actually eliminate the threat of a Repugnant Conclusion.

