Choice Group Seminar by Chris Cowie (Durham University): Do Vector Models of Welfare Resolve the Axiological Paradoxes?

Abstract: The paradoxes of population axiology are notoriously stubborn, but in recent years there has been convergence on a strategy for resolving them. It is to model welfare as a vector rather than a scalar quantity, with the vector components representing lexically ordered goods. The proposal – which has been aired in work by Erik Carlson, Teruji Thomas and Jacob Nebel – has much going for it: the view of welfare is well-motivated and intuitive; it allows for a rejection of the ‘small steps’ condition in recent formulations of axiological paradox; and it explains the repugnance of the repugnant conclusion. I argue that this view nevertheless has unacceptable consequences. Its most plausible version either (i) entails that a population consisting of only good lives is worse than one consisting overwhelmingly of bad lives, or (ii) violates a plausible dominance principle according to which if A is better than B, and C is better than D, then A&C are better than B&D.

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