Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability pp 176-200 | Cite as
Person-Affecting Paretian Egalitarianism with Variable Population Size
Abstract
Where there is a fixed population (i.e., one whose existence does not depend on what choice an agent makes), the deontic version of anonymous Paretian egalitarianism holds that an option is just if and only if (1) it is anonymously Pareto optimal (i.e., no feasible alternative has a permutation that is Pareto superior), and (2) it is no less equal than any other anonymously Pareto optimal option. We shall develop and discuss a version of this approach for the variable population case (i.e., where who exists does depend on what choice an agent makes). More specifically, we develop and discuss it in the context of a person-affecting framework — in which an option is just if and only if it wrongs no one according to certain plausible conditions on wronging.
Keywords
Feasible Alternative Feasible Option Admissible Condition Equality Weak Population CasePreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
- Arrhenius, Gustaf (2005) ‘The Paradoxes of Future Generations and Normative Theory’, in J. Ryberg and T. Tännsjö (eds), The Repugnant Conclusion ( Dordrecht: Springer ), pp. 201–18.Google Scholar
- Blackorby, Charles, Walter Bossert, and David Donaldson (2005) Population Issues in Social-Choice Theory, Welfare Economics and Ethics ( Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Broome, John (2004) Weighing Lives ( Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Holtug, Nils (2001) ‘On the Value of Coming into Existence’, Journal of Ethics, vol. 5, pp. 361–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Holtug, Nils (2005) ‘Person-affecting Moralities’, in Jesper Ryberg and Torbjorn Tannsjo (eds), The Repugnant Conclusion ( Dordrecht: Springer ), pp. 129–61.Google Scholar
- Roberts, Melinda (1998) Child versus Childmaker: Future Persons and Present Duties in Ethics and the Law ( New York: Rowman and Littlefield).Google Scholar
- Roberts, Melinda (2002) ‘A New Way of Doing the Best That We Can: Person-based Consequentialism and the Equality Problem’, Ethics, vol. 112, pp. 315–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Sen, Amartya (1993) ‘Internal Consistency of Choice’, Econometrica, vol. 61,pp. 495–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Reprinted in Amartya Sen, Rationality and Freedom ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002 ).Google Scholar
- Tungodden, Bertil and Peter Vallentyne (2005) ‘On the Possibility of Paretian Egalitarianism’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 102, pp. 126–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Vallentyne, Peter (2000a) ‘Equality, Efficiency, and Priority for the Worse Off’, Economics and Philosophy, vol. 16, pp. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Vallentyne, Peter (2000b) ‘Critical Notice of Child versus Childmaker: Future Persons and Present Duties in Ethics and the Law by Melinda Roberts’, Nous, vol. 34, pp. 634–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar