ARTICLE
The Need for Merely Possible People
Volume 28, Number 2, August 2024, Pages 230–241
PDFAbstract
W. V. Quine wished to restrict the interests that matter to those of actual people. Actual-Population Utilitarianism is a version of utilitarianism whereby, following Quine, only the interests of actual people matter. It is well known that ethical theories of this kind, which depend on what is actual, typically lead to normative variance. In this paper, I put forward a new objection to Actual-Population Utilitarianism. I present a case in which Actual-Population Utilitarianism prescribes choices that are worse for everyone whose interests matter than the opposite choices. Moreover, I put forward a case in which total and average versions of Actual-Population Utilitarianism prescribe choices that are worse than the opposite choice for everyone (full stop). This objection also applies if the Actual-Population Restriction is combined with nonutilitarian views, given some minimal assumptions.
Copyright © 2024 Johan E. Gustafsson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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