Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Repugnant Conclusion and
Expected Misery Argument
1 Introduction
As we have seen, both the Prior Existence View and the Total View are
possible utilitarian views on the moral status of contingent beings.
Total Utilitarianism implies the Replaceability Argument and is there-
fore compatible with the aim of animal-friendly animal husbandry,
while Prior Existence Utilitarianism does not imply the Replaceability
Argument and is not compatible with the aim of animal-friendly animal
husbandry. In the foregoing three chapters, I have explored the assump-
tions of both views. In the remainder of this topic, I will explore some
implications of both versions of utilitarianism.
1
In the literature, implications of both versions of utilitarianism are
compared in terms of their fit with common sense judgements or what
can be called 'intuitive appeal'. This raises the question about the role of
intuitions within utilitarianism. The most broadly criticised implication of
Total Utilitarianism is that it potentially requires bringing into existence
additional people in order to raise the overall quantity of welfare. This
might hold, even if adding people to the population significantly reduced
the welfare of already existing beings, and even if the added people them-
selves were barely happy. If the number of people whose lives contain
welfare is large enough, their lives together might contain more welfare
than the lives of a smaller number of very happy people. This implication
has been called the Repugnant Conclusion. Prior Existence Utilitarianism
can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion because it does not take into account
the possible welfare of contingent beings. However, exactly the omission
of taking into account the possible welfare of contingent beings seems
to lead to an implication that many consider no less repugnant. Prior
Existence Utilitarianism seems to be unable to account for the intuition
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