Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-sl7kg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-22T19:37:41.305Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ON PARITY AND THE INTUITION OF NEUTRALITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2017

Mozaffar Qizilbash
Mozaffar Qizilbash*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, YO10 5DD. Email: mozaffar.qizilbash@york.ac.uk. URL: https://www.york.ac.uk/economics/our-people/staff-profiles/mozaffar-qizilbash/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

On parity views of mere addition if someone (or a group of people) is added to the world at a range of well-being levels – or ‘neutral range’ – leaving existing people unaffected, addition is on a par with the initial situation. Two distinct parity views – ‘rough equality’ and fitting-attitudes views – defend the ‘intuition of neutrality’. The first can be interpreted or adjusted so that it can rebut John Broome's objection that the neutral range is wide. The two views respond in distinct ways to two of Broome's other objections. Both views can, nonetheless, be plausibly defended against these objections.

Keywords

ethicsmere additionParfitparitypopulation
Type
Articles
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 87 - 108
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Arrhenius, G. 2000. Future Generations: A Challenge for Moral Theory. Uppsala: University Printers, Ekonomikum.Google Scholar
Arrhenius, G. 2016. Population ethics and different-number-based imprecision. Theoria 82: 166–181.Google Scholar
Arrhenius, G. Forthcoming. Population Ethics: The Challenge of Future Generations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blackorby, C., Bossert, W. and Donaldson, D.. 1996. Quasi-orderings and population ethics. Social Choice and Welfare 13: 129–151.Google Scholar
Blackorby, C., Bossert, W. and Donaldson, D.. 1997. Critical-level utilitarianism and the population-ethics dilemma. Economics and Philosophy 13: 197–230.Google Scholar
Blackorby, C., Bossert, W. and Donaldson, D., 2005. Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 1999. Ethics out of Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, J. 2004. Weighing Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 2007 a. Reply to Qizilbash. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXV (1): 152–157.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 2007 b. Replies. Economics and Philosophy 23: 115–124.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 2009. Reply to Rabinowicz. Philosophical Issues 19: 412–417.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 2012. Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World. New York, NY: Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Carlson, E. 2010 a. The small improvement argument rescued. Philosophical Quarterly 61: 171–174.Google Scholar
Carlson, E. 2010 b. Parity demystified. Theoria 76: 119–128.Google Scholar
Chang, R. 2002 a. Making Comparisons Count. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chang, R. 2002 b. The possibility of parity. Ethics 112: 659–688.Google Scholar
Chang, R. 2005. Parity, interval value and choice. Ethics 115: 331–350.Google Scholar
Chang, R. 2016. Parity, imprecise comparability and the repugnant conclusion. Theoria 82: 182–214.Google Scholar
Espinoza, N. 2008. The small improvement argument. Synthese 165: 127–139.Google Scholar
Frick, J. 2014. Making Happy People, Not Making People Happy: A Defence of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics. PhD Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Frick, J. 2017. On the survival of humanity. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47: 344–367.Google Scholar
Gert, J. 2004. Value and parity. Ethics 114: 492–520.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. 1986. Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Importance. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, J. 2011 a. Preference and Choice Doctoral Thesis in Philosophy, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, J. 2011 b. An extended framework for preference relations. Economics and Philosophy 27: 360–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafsson, J. 2013. Indeterminacy and the small improvement argument. Utilitas 25: 433–445.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, J. and Espinoza, N.. 2009. Conflicting reasons in the small improvement argument. Philosophical Quarterly 60: 754–763.Google Scholar
Hsieh, N-H. 2005. Equality, clumpiness and incomparability. Utilitas 17: 180–204.Google Scholar
Narveson, J. 1967. Utilitarianism and future generations. Mind 76: 62–72.Google Scholar
Narveson, J. 1973. Moral problems of population. Monist 57: 62–86.Google Scholar
Nebel, J. 2015. Incommensurability in Population Ethics. BPhil Dissertation. Oxford: Oxford University.Google Scholar
Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parfit, D. 2016. Can we avoid the repugnant conclusion? Theoria 82: 110–127.Google Scholar
Peterson, M. 2007. Parity, clumpiness and rational choice. Utilitas 19: 505–513.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2000. Comparability of values, rough equality and vagueness: Griffin and Broome on incommensurability. Utilitas 12: 223–240.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2002. Rationality, comparability and maximization. Economics and Philosophy 18: 141–156.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2005. The mere addition paradox, parity and critical-level utilitarianism. Social Choice and Welfare 24: 413–431.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2007 a. The mere addition paradox, parity and vagueness. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXV (1): 129–151.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2007 b. The parity view and intuitions of neutrality. Economics and Philosophy 23: 107–114.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2012. Incommensurability or vagueness? A comment on Rabinowicz and Sugden. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society CXII: 331–336.Google Scholar
Raz, J. 1986. Morality and Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rabinowicz, W. 2009 a. Broome and the intuition of neutrality. Philosophical Issues 19: 389– 411.Google Scholar
Rabinowicz, W. 2009 b. Incommensurability and vagueness. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society LXXXIII: 71–94.Google Scholar
Rabinowicz, W. 2012. Value relations revisited. Economics and Philosophy 27: 133–164.Google Scholar
Sugden, R. 2009. On modelling vagueness – and not modelling incommensurability. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Supplementary Volume) 83: 95–113.Google Scholar
Temkin, L. 1987. Intransitivity and the mere addition paradox. Philosophy and Public Affairs 16: 138–187.Google Scholar