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Superiority Discounting Implies the Preposterous Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2022

Mitchell Barrington Open the ORCID record for Mitchell Barrington [Opens in a new window]
Mitchell Barrington*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia
*
E-mail: barringt@usc.edu
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Abstract

Many population axiologies avoid the Repugnant Conclusion (RC) by endorsing Superiority: some number of great lives is better than any number of mediocre lives. But as Nebel shows, RC follows (given plausible auxiliary assumptions) from the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion (IRC): a guaranteed mediocre life is better than a sufficiently small probability of a great life. This result is concerning because IRC is plausible. Recently, Kosonen has argued that IRC can be true while RC is false if small probabilities are discounted to zero. This article details the unique problems created by combining Superiority with discounting. The resultant view, Superiority Discounting, avoids the Repugnant Conclusion only at the cost of the Preposterous Conclusion: near-certain hell for arbitrarily many people is better than near-certain heaven for arbitrarily many people.

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Utilitas , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 493 - 501
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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