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One might get the impression that utilitarians are not impressed by
counter-intuitive implications of their moral theory, or of any moral
theory, for that matter. As reformers, utilitarians can expect that they
have to argue against the prevailing opinion.
Although utilitarians do not shy away from making claims that strike
many as utterly implausible, they tend to be prepared to defend their
claims. In those defences, appeals to counter-intuitive implications
are taken seriously, in one of the many above-mentioned ways. For
instance, intuitive judgements are unmasked as being caused by evolu-
tionary contingencies that are morally irrelevant; 14 attempts to avoid
certain counter-intuitive implications are shown to be unconvincing; 15
and judgements that strike many as counter-intuitive are presented,
from a different perspective, as normal and reasonable, after all. 16 Some
leading utilitarians even defend a coherentist method of arguing what
we have reason to believe. According to that method, 'in defending
a moral theory, we must see how well that theory fits in with a wide
variety of judgements that we are inclined to make about many different
matters.' 17 Also in that process, judgements are submitted to critical
(re-)consideration and are confronted with other judgements about
cases, moral theory or the purpose of morality.
As those reactions reveal, even utilitarians take appeals to counter-
intuitive implications seriously as an invitation for further discussion.
Therefore, it should bear no surprise that appeals to counter-intuitive
implications figure also in the debate between Total Utilitarianism and
Prior Existence Utilitarianism. My aim in what follows is not to evaluate
the implications of both views in terms of their intuitive appeal or plausi-
bility. I will leave this to the reader. After all, if intuitions are taken seriously
in moral evaluations, this holds much more for one's own intuitions than
for those of others. Furthermore, for my purpose, it is not necessary to
take a position on whether and how intuitions should be taken seriously
and which view is intuitively more appealing. My aim, in the end, is not
to defend any view, but rather to explore the implications and assump-
tions of two coherent utilitarian views on whose welfare to count in the
aggregation of welfare. Hence, I will point out what the implications of
Total Utilitarianism and Prior Existence Utilitarianism are.
3 The repugnant conclusion
In the aggregation of welfare, the Total View takes into account the welfare
of all existing beings and the possible welfare of all possible beings. This
seems to be attractively straightforward: all welfare consequences of the
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