About the badness of existence and the prospect of extinction

Abstract

In this paper I consider the case of people who find The Mere Addition Principle counterintuitive. Their particular intuitions may be understood as instances of The Principle of Intrinsic Disvalue of Existence (PIDA). Following this idea Contractualism seems to be an appropriate method to solve population ethics dilemmas. Still, I show that their rejection of The Mere Addition Principle – if understood as an instance of PIDA – is not enough to avoid these dilemmas and to reach a stable equilibrium among their intuitions. In fact, if their denial of The Mere Addition Principle is grounded on PIDA, the consequences which would follow are likely to be unacceptable for many of them. In particular, either they hold that we have a duty in favor of extinction, or they cannot take PIDA seriously enough. Rejecting the Mere Addition Principle without endorsing PIDA seems the best they can do in order to reach a stable equilibrium among their intuitions.