Repugnant Conclusion and Expected Misery Argument - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 116

of morality. Respect of autonomy as such is not allowed to outweigh
welfare considerations. Autonomy might be included in the concept of
welfare. In that case, however, it is no separate consideration.
What many find repugnant about the Repugnant Conclusion is its
implication about 'the comparative value of a population with very high
welfare and a population with very low welfare'. 25 It is its implication that
a population with very low welfare could somehow be better in terms
of welfare than a population with very high welfare. This sting of the
Repugnant Conclusion has not been taken away by the above-mentioned
considerations. What remains counter-intuitive for many is the idea that
a perfectly happy population might be required to give up significant
amounts of welfare, in order to allow for the addition of extra persons,
resulting in a larger population of people that are barely happy. This intui-
tion has also been spelled out on a smaller scale. Should a couple, which
expects to be happier without children, be required to have children,
provided that the happiness of those children would more than compen-
sate for the lost happiness of the couple? This is what Total Utilitarianism
requires - at least if no other way of raising total welfare is available.
On a deontic level the Repugnant Conclusion has been considered
more repugnant than on a purely axiological level. 26 If we compare two
populations as such in terms of welfare, the idea that the population
with the greatest overall welfare is the better one in terms of welfare
might be unavoidable. It says something about the value of states of
affairs. It does not mean that people in the first world have the duty
to bring more beings into existence and strive for the second world.
The repugnance of the Repugnant Conclusion may lie exactly in the
implication that maximising happiness by making happy people should
count on a par with maximising happiness by making people happy.
The idea behind this criticism of the Total View is that existing beings
(and future beings) should have priority over contingent beings. That
is exactly what the Prior Existence View claims. So, the Prior Existence
View can be seen as an expression of the idea that maximising happi-
ness by making people that are happy should not count on a par with
maximising happiness by making people happy.
4 The expected misery argument
In the literature, the Prior Existence View is typically presented as an
'initially appealing' theory. The Prior Existence View does not take into
account the possible happiness of contingent beings in decisions about
whether to create them. Therefore, this view can avoid the Repugnant