Notes - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 172

18. The Total View on who counts morally in conjunction with the average view
as a method of aggregation would not yield this result. It implies that any
addition to a population is forbidden if it lowers the average. Thus any child
with a level of welfare beneath average, even if very happy, should not be
born. Killing individuals with a welfare level below average does also raise
the average. And where should the killing end? There will always be indi-
viduals beneath average, until only one individual or some equally happy
individuals remain. Furthermore, the average view would require the addi-
tion of a very unhappy individual to a population, if the rest of the existing
individuals fare even worse. (This would benefit nobody, of course, but it
would raise the average welfare level.) For those reasons, the average view has
been dismissed. (This shows, again, that even utilitarians care about counter-
intuitive implications of moral theories.)
19. Parfit (1984, p. 388).
20. Parfit (1984, p. 388).
21. I presume that Parfit assumes a big number because if only a few people were
assumed to live, adding extra people - even at the expense of the previously
existing people's welfare - may intuitively be a less unattractive thing to do.
Ideas about the diminishing value of extra lives in bigger populations can
potentially play a role here. Hurka (1983) has explicitly defended that idea in
his 'variable value view'.
22. Sumner (1978, p. 104).
23. Sikora (1978, p. 117).
24. Those with a more demanding definition of happiness would not consider
them 'happy' at all (Haybron, 2008, p. 4).
25. Arrhenius (forthcoming).
26. Broome (2004, p. 140).
27. Parfit (1984, p. 391).
28. Singer (1993, p. 123), Singer (2011, p. 109), Arrhenius (2000, p. 161) and
Mulgan (2006, p. 5).
29. Anglin (1978, p. 36), Parfit (1984, p. 391).
30. Sapontzis (1987, p. 191).
31. Sapontzis (1987, p. 192).
32. Sapontzis (1987, p. 191).
33. Kagan (2000, p. 134).
34. Merriam Websters Online Dictionary
35. Encarta.msn.com/dictionary
36. Encarta.msn.com/dictionary.
37. Encarta.msn.com/dictionary.
38. Aristotle (1984, e.g. 1103, pp. 7-30).
39. Bennett (1993, pp. 13-14). See also McDowell (1979, p. 333) and Nussbaum
(1999, pp. 174, 187).
40. Doris (2002).
41. For a reflection on Character Utilitarianism, see Railton (1988).
42. Pluhar (1995, p. 214).
43. Pluhar (1995, p. 214).
44. Pluhar (1995, p. 214).
45. Pluhar (1995, p. 215).
46. Pluhar (1995, pp. 214-15, italics mine).