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Acts and Outcomes: A Reply to Boonin‐Vail
Author(s) -
PARFIT DEREK
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
philosophy and public affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.388
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1088-4963
pISSN - 0048-3915
DOI - 10.1111/j.1088-4963.1996.tb00044.x
Subject(s) - metaphysics , realism , philosophy , citation , epistemology , sociology , computer science , library science
These three beliefs are all, I claimed, plausible; but they cannot all be true. B cannot be worse than A if it is better than something which is not worse than A. I also claimed that, of these beliefs, the hardest to deny are (2) and (3). So we seem forced to abandon (1). We seem forced to conclude that, compared with the existence of a large population whose lives were well worth living, it would be better if there were twice as many people, who would all be worse off. Since that is hard to believe, I called this the Mere Addition Paradox.l