The Repugnant Conclusion
Updated 2026-09-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The Repugnant Conclusion is a problem in population ethics: for any population of large size and very high quality of life, there is a larger population in which each person's life is barely worth living, and which is, other things being equal, better than the first. Parfit brought the problem to prominence, and it pressures any axiology that aggregates welfare across lives.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Total test: check whether your axiology would judge a multitude of mediocre lives to be better. - Policy evaluation: distinguish average welfare from total welfare when assessing population and public policy. - Intuition calibration: force a choice between moral intuition and seemingly harmless principles.
Anchor fast decisions
The conclusion is hard to evade because several seemingly harmless assumptions combine to yield it: welfare can be summed across persons, aggregation considers only the total, and a life slightly worse but still worth living is better than no life at all. Accept these, and summing enough barely worthwhile lives will eventually outweigh a few extremely happy ones.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/verified
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