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A dilemma for lexical and Archimedean views in population axiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2021

Elliott Thornley Open the ORCID record for Elliott Thornley [Opens in a new window]
Elliott Thornley*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK
*
Email: elliott.thornley@gmail.com
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Abstract

Lexical views in population axiology can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion without violating Transitivity or Separability. However, they imply a dilemma: either some good life is better than any number of slightly worse lives, or else the ‘at least as good as’ relation on populations is radically incomplete. In this paper, I argue that Archimedean views face an analogous dilemma. I thus conclude that the lexical dilemma gives us little reason to prefer Archimedean views. Even if we give up on lexicality, problems of the same kind remain.

Keywords

Population axiologylexical viewsArchimedean viewsRepugnant Conclusionincommensurability

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Article
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Economics & Philosophy , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , November 2022 , pp. 395 - 415
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© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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