Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper concerns the difficulty of avoiding an additive version of the Very Repugnant Conclusion. An impossibility theorem is provided which shows that we cannot avoid this version of the Repugnant Conclusion even if we deny the Mere Addition Principle and closely related principles which place limits on the badness of adding happy people, such as “Dominance Addition” and additive “Non-Sadism” conditions. I argue that the impossibility theorem shows that the additive version of the Very Repugnant Conclusion cannot reasonably be avoided by population-ethical means alone. One must instead either deny structural conditions such as acyclicity, adopt a radically unorthodox fixed-population axiology, or accept this version of the Very Repugnant Conclusion.
Source: Economics and Philosophy
Author: Tomi Francis
Institution: University of Fribourg
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
Funder: University of Pennsylvania
OpenAlex ID: W7124261637