OK… I have another criticism of the repugnant conclusion not based on resource constraints.
We can imagine a sequence of worlds A, B, C, D… each with a greater population, lower average happiness and greater utility than the previous. But did anyone say that the happiness has to converge to zero?
If we’re indifferent between worlds with the same number of people and the same average happiness then yes, it does converge to zero. But if we choose some other averaging function then not necessarily. When going from A+ to B- we might lower the left column only a tiny amount, and when we repeat the process all the way to Z then people might be only modestly less happy than they were in A.
OK… I have another criticism of the repugnant conclusion not based on resource constraints.
We can imagine a sequence of worlds A, B, C, D… each with a greater population, lower average happiness and greater utility than the previous. But did anyone say that the happiness has to converge to zero?
If we’re indifferent between worlds with the same number of people and the same average happiness then yes, it does converge to zero. But if we choose some other averaging function then not necessarily. When going from A+ to B- we might lower the left column only a tiny amount, and when we repeat the process all the way to Z then people might be only modestly less happy than they were in A.