Population axiology

Abstract

Population axiology is the study of the conditions under whichonestate of affairs is better than another, when the states of affairs in question may differ over the numbers and the identities of the persons who ever live.Extant theories include totalism,averagism, variable value theories, critical level theories,and“person-affecting”theories.Eachofthesethe- ories is open to objections that are at least prima facie serious. A series of impossibility theorems shows that this is no coincidence: It can be proved, for various lists of prima facie intuitively compelling desider- ata, that no axiology can simultaneously satisfy all the desiderata on the list. One’s choice of population axiology appears to be a choice of which intuition one is least unwilling to give up.