On the value of happy people and the moral importance of low-welfare species

Thesis

This thesis discusses two philosophical issues that are relevant to global priorities research: the value of additional happy people and the moral importance of species with small welfare ranges. Chapters 1 to 3 discuss the value of additional happy people, which is the focus of the thesis. The first chapter argues, based on John Broome’s greediness argument, that a minimal welfarist requirement for the evaluation of variable-population cases can only be met by views on which additional happy people make the world better. Chapter 2 discusses the pseudo-dominance principle according to which something is better overall if it is better in some respect and not worse in any respect. It argues that a strict interpretation of this principle avoids problems stemming from incommensurateness but also makes the principle inapplicable. In response, two refined versions of pseudo-dominance are developed, and it is argued that these principles refute the neutrality view, according to which the existence of additional happy people is a neutral matter. Chapter 3 applies the neutrality view to the case of human extinction. It argues that even if we are extremely optimistic about the future development of humanity, near-term human extinction would not be bad if the neutrality view is true. Both the harms to present people and all non-welfarist values that could plausibly favour humanity’s survival are cancelled out by the additional people in survival outcomes. There is thus no convergence of population-ethical views on the badness of human extinction. Chapter 4 finally turns to the moral importance of low-welfare species, i.e. species that have relatively small welfare ranges compared to humans. A natural extension of relevance views implies that all kinds of benefits to members of low-welfare species are irrelevant when significant human benefits are at stake. The chapter argues against this way of extending relevance views to inter-species comparisons and defends an alternative view, according to which even benefits to individuals with tiny welfare ranges can be relevant when much larger human benefits are at stake.

Authors: Lohmar, J

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-xvpkevb5m
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: axiology; human extinction; greediness; pseudo-dominance; welfare ranges; population ethics; neutrality intuition
• Subjects: Ethics