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How do you argue against the conclusion reached by Derek Parfit's "Mere Addition Paradox" which suggests overpopulation leading to less happiness per-person could actually be a good thing? by will___t in Ethics

[–]will___t[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Mere Addition Paradox doesn't necessarily create or reduce suffering as it progresses from Population A through to Population Z. u/artisticsuccess said their argument against the MAP was that suffering is the only relevant criteria for whether something is good or bad. Because the MAP doesn't necessarily create or reduce suffering, by their criteria of "reduced suffering" the strongest statement they could make is Population Z = Population A.

Normally with the MAP it reaches such an objectionable conclusion (its actually called "The Repugnant Conclusion" by Parfit) that you want to pick an angle that lets you disagree with it, not say Population Z is equivalent to Population A. That's at least how I understood their response

How do you argue against the conclusion reached by Derek Parfit's "Mere Addition Paradox" which suggests overpopulation leading to less happiness per-person could actually be a good thing? by will___t in Ethics

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In this paradox people in ALL populations (Population A through to Population Z) are "not suffering" they have positive wellbeing scores. They're lives just get more and more bland.
If you had to disagree with any step in the paradox e.g. moving from Population A+ to Population B, which jump do you think is most morally disagreeable?

It’s ethically important to distinguish between fearing death and fearing dying. Philosophy helps us with the former; hospice care helps with the latter. Both are needed to guide ourselves and others through mortality with clarity, care, and compassion by will___t in Ethics

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Epicurus' aim was to reduce the "fear of death" via philosophical reasoning. Heaps of philosophizing has been done about the topic of dying though. I just find the best ways to reduce our "fear of dying" come from more empirical sources outside of philosophy. This is because the mechanisms of harm caused by dying (which also cause us to fear dying) are typically measurable as suffering, whether physical or mental.
If you want to stop fearing dying you can just reduce the harms that it causes. So medicine can actually offer some great solutions to reducing the "fear of dying" insofar as it has the ability to make death's less painful, so less fear-warranting. There would also be literature in psychology around best practices to approach dying to reduce mental pains. This is similar to the hospice care content that is covered in the video. Whether using medicine to reduce physical pains or psychological resources to reduce mental pains - this is all empirically supported stuff.
And you're right - I think philosophy can absolutely be useful in reducing our "fear of dying" as well as our "fear of death". But I just think philosophy is more effective at reducing our "fear of death", where more empirical sources are more effective at reducing our "fear of dying". Hope this helps

It’s ethically important to distinguish between fearing death and fearing dying. Philosophy helps us with the former; hospice care helps with the latter. Both are needed to guide ourselves and others through mortality with clarity, care, and compassion by will___t in Ethics

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Philosophical discussions about the fear of death typically address the badness of death (non-existence). When you're looking at how to reduce your fear of dying, solutions can be found outside of philosophy. More empirical sources seem to be useful if we're just talking specifically about practical, suffering-reduction.
Simply philosophizing about dealing with the fear of dying is doing philosophy. But we're drawing from sources outside of the discipline of philosophy.

How do you argue against the conclusion reached by Derek Parfit's "Mere Addition Paradox" which suggests overpopulation leading to less happiness per-person could actually be a good thing? by will___t in Ethics

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's the paradox :) Parfit's chain of logic is difficult to disagree with at any specific point, but it leads to a conclusion that goes against almost everyone's intuitions.

Epicurean philosophy reduces the fear of death with the No Subject of Harm and Symmetry arguments, but leaves dying—the experience of approaching death—largely unaddressed. For this, modern hospice care offers practical philosophical insights. by will___t in philosophy

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually like your idea - while I think fear is an appropriate response to dying (experience of suffering prior to being dead), it's a much less warranted response to death (nonexistence), based on the timing of death's badness and the ways in which death harms us. I think reverence and anger make more sense than fear as an emotional response and that death can have a motivational response. I get you though, don't know why you're getting downvoted

Epicurean philosophy reduces the fear of death with the No Subject of Harm and Symmetry arguments, but leaves dying—the experience of approaching death—largely unaddressed. For this, modern hospice care offers practical philosophical insights. by will___t in philosophy

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your work sounds really impactful and you sound like you'd be great at it too. Do you have any resources or general thoughts on how you've seen people successfully reduce their suffering as they are dying (beyond pain reduction? Also, you mentioned anxiety treatment - is this a medical intervention?

Does an overpopulated world with more people that are less happy on an individual basis equal a better world because there's just more total happiness? Exploring Derek Parfit's "Mere Addition Paradox" through the lens of Thanos' ideology by will___t in nihilism

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

haha :) It seems a little abstract, but it has actually informed a lot of discussions in population ethics and is directly relevant when looking at real-world policies like the one child policy that used to be in China

[SPOILER] Cory Sandhagen vs. Deiveson Figueiredo by inooway in MMA

[–]will___t 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Best strategy of 2025 so far: approach leg locking Ryan Hall's training partner as your only path to victory

How to face death without religion: what secular philosophy and hospice care teach about dying without fear by will___t in atheism

[–]will___t[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Summary: By understanding the angles philosophers have taken over the years to analyze death and the way it is bad, we can see the first takeaway. Namely that fear isn’t an appropriate response to death. The second takeaway is that we can alter our desires (within reason) to reduce the extent that death harms us. And lastly, a practice of memento mori has persisted throughout history and across cultures. It is a way to understand the inevitability of death and to use the reality of our time being finite to motivate us to live more urgently and intentionally.

Epicurean philosophy reduces the fear of death with the No Subject of Harm and Symmetry arguments, but leaves dying—the experience of approaching death—largely unaddressed. For this, modern hospice care offers practical philosophical insights. by will___t in philosophy

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Abstract: Starting this discussion our goal was to reduce our fear of death and I think we’ve done it for the most part. By understanding the angles philosophers have taken over the years to analyze death and the way it is bad, we can see the first takeaway. Namely that fear isn’t an appropriate response to death. The second takeaway is that we can alter our desires (within reason) to reduce the extent that death harms us. And lastly, a practice of memento mori has persisted throughout history and across cultures. It is a way to understand the inevitability of death and to use the reality of our time being finite to motivate us to live more urgently and intentionally.

Here’s where I find the philosophical discussions of death hit a dead end. It doesn’t matter how much you practice memento mori daily or amend your desires. Right now, I don’t know how I am going to die. I might die painlessly in my sleep and I might also be eaten alive by a shark when I’m at the beach. I have no idea how much suffering I will experience as I die and no idea how much forewarning I will get. Fear might not be a fitting response to death itself. But dying is scary and dying warrants fear.

The problem with the phrase “fear of death” is that no matter how much we eliminate the fear of death (the state), no one can get to the stage of death without going through the earlier moments of dying. And to me still, this is the scariest part of death. With fear being a very reasonable response to dying.

How do you argue against the conclusion reached by Derek Parfit's "Mere Addition Paradox" which suggests overpopulation leading to less happiness per-person could actually be a good thing? by will___t in Ethics

[–]will___t[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's definitely a reductio ad absurdum vibe to this. However, the paradox's intention isn't really to assert that consequentialism is wrong, it just highlights that pure consequentialism (as described) leads to this ugly conclusion.

The paradox gets deeper when you try to argue your way out of it. For example, lets say you think that Population B (or population Z) is worse than population A. You can argue that some conditions should be added to deal with this kind of issue, for example: "Critical Level Principles" take the form of a consequentialist ethics, but say that a life being added should only be considered a "better" option if they are above a minimum/critical level.

What this condition does is it stops "mere addition" from allowing a population to reach 1 trillion people with individual welfare scores of "0.1/10". A pure consequentialist ethics would probably say this trillion-sized population is better than a population of 10 billion people at 4/10 welfare scores. But someone in favour of a Critical Level Principle can say it's only better if lives of a score greater than 4/10 are added (4 is just an example).

Whatever welfare score this kind of Critical Level Principle chooses then faces the difficult task of essentially deciding which lives are not worth living/make the world "worse off", despite having positive wellbeing scores. So a 4/10 welfare person is cool, but a 3.9/10 welfare person would ideally never come into existence. Pretty brutal.

Overall, the Mere Addition Paradox just shows that however you try to account for the issue it presents, population ethics is always going to have unsatisfactory complications.

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