M. A. Roberts

The Existence Puzzles (eBook, ePUB)

An Introduction to Population Ethics

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Population ethics challenges moral theories we previously considered compelling and throws into relief the practical problems--including those relating to climate change and procreative privacy--moral agents all face. Population ethics has thus emerged in recent years as among the most significant areas in moral philosophy. M. A. Roberts introduces the newcomer to population ethics while at the same time investigating the key issues in a way that will be of interest to professional philosophers, economists, and lawyers seeking to understand what a cogent, plausible theory of population will look like. Roberts avoids the method of presenting a theory and then applying that theory to stock problem cases. Rather, she invites the reader to work through five perplexing but riveting puzzles each rooted in the question whether bringing additional people into existence--on its own--makes the world morally better. Each of her "existence puzzles"--the Asymmetry Puzzle, the Pareto Puzzle, the Addition Puzzle, the Anonymity Puzzle, and the Better Chance Puzzle--either already is or shall soon become a critically important part of the population ethics literature. Roberts proposes solutions to the puzzles that together form a partial theory of population, a collection of principles grounded in intuition but highly sensitive to the formal demands of consistency and cogency.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. Januar 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780197544167
• Artikelnr.: 69711818

Autorenporträt

M. A. Roberts is a professor of philosophy at the College of New Jersey. Her articles in population ethics have appeared in Ethics, Analysis, Theoria, Utilitas, Theory and Decision, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Law and Economics and elsewhere. She is the author of Abortion and the Moral Significance of Merely Possible Persons and Child Versus Childmaker.

Inhaltsangabe

* Acknowledgments
* Dedication
* List of accepted principles and rejected principles
* Lists of figures
* Preface
* Chapter 1: Recent history and current perplexed state of population
ethics
* 1.1 Population variability and the inquiry into existential status
* 1.2 The case of Jaime versus Harry
* 1.3 A quick turn back to traditional total view
* 1.4 More than one way to maximize: maximizing on the aggregate;
maximizing on the individual
* 1.5 Are hormones to blame?
* 1.6 Conceptual necessities also puzzle pieces; more inventive
approaches on hold
* 1.7 The puzzle method; the role of intuition; the off ramp
* 1.8 Connection thesis; accessibility relation
* 1.9 Five existence puzzles
* Chapter 2: The Asymmetry Puzzle
* 2.1 The miserable child case and the happy child case
* 2.2 The puzzle
* 2.3 Attempts to solve the puzzle that go nowhere
* 2.4 The existence-sensitive solution to the asymmetry
* 2.5 Objections and replies
* Chapter 3: The Pareto puzzle
* 3.1 The three option case
* 3.2 The puzzle
* 3.3 Attempts to solve the puzzle by tossing out some of the puzzle
pieces
* 3.4 The Pareto minus solution to the Pareto puzzle
* 3.5 Objection and reply: Doesn't the Pareto minus solution violate
the independence of irrelevant alternatives?
* Chapter 4: The Addition Puzzle
* 4.1 The puzzle
* 4.2 Why we love addition
* 4.3 Inversive existence-sensitive solution to the addition puzzle
* 4.4 Objection and reply: Isn't inversive existence-sensitive addition
circular?
* 4.5 Applications of inversive existence-sensitive addition
* 4.6 Wouldn't it be simpler to "minimize aggregate complaints"?
* Chapter 5: The Anonymity Puzzle
* 5.1 The case of simple addition and reversal
* 5.2 The case of indefinitely iterated addition and reversal; the
puzzle
* 5.3 When the cures are worse than the disease
* 5.4 Identity-sensitive solution to the anonymity puzzle
* 5.5 Objections and replies
* Chapter 6: The Better Chance Puzzle
* 6.1 Probability questions
* 6.2 Expected value: the wrong way to make a wrong a right
* 6.3 Probable value: a better way to make a wrong a right
* 6.4 Objections and replies
* Chapter 7: Person-based consequentialism and a New Way of Doing the
Best We Can
* Appendix A: Nonexistence Comparability
* Appendix B: The Loss Distinction Thesis
* Appendix C: Broome on the Neutrality Intuition
* Index
* Bibliography