Intuition of neutrality

BibliographyFurther reading

The intuition of neutrality is the view in population ethics that, roughly, adding a person to the population is in itself ethically neutral. More precisely, the view states that adding a person whose lifetime wellbeing falls within a certain positive range makes the world neither intrinsically better nor intrinsically worse (Broome 2004).worse.^[1]

Broome, John (2004) Weighing Lives, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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   Broome, John (2004) Weighing Lives, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Related entries

person-affecting views | population ethics

Bibliography

Broome, John (2000) Cost‐benefit analysis and population, The Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 29, pp. 953–970.

Broome, John (2004) Weighing Lives, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Narveson, Jan (1973) Moral problems of population, Monist, vol. 57, pp. 62–86.

Rabinowicz, Włodek (2009) Broome and the intuition of neutrality, Philosophical Issues, vol. 19, pp. 389–411.

The intuition of neutrality is the view in population ethics that, roughly, adding a person to the population is in itself ethically neutral. More precisely, the view states that adding a person whose lifetime wellbeing falls within a certain positive range makes the world neither intrinsically better nor intrinsically worse (Broome 2004).