The very repugnant conclusion

Abstract

This paper presents an impossibility theorem in population axiology. It argues that no population axiology can satisfy five adequacy conditions, namely the Egalitarian Dominance, the Non-Elitism, the General Non-Extreme Priority, Avoidance of the Very Repugnant Conclusion, and the Dominance Addition Condition. The Very Repugnant Conclusion is a controversial implication of population axiology, and the author argues that it is more repugnant than Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion. The paper presents a formal proof of the impossibility theorem, which relies on a number of lemmas demonstrating the relationships between the adequacy conditions. – AI-generated abstract.