► To stay informed about other upcoming events at the Centre for Ethics, opportunities, and more, please sign up for our newsletter.

The Utility Monster

This paper develops a new impossibility result that connects population ethics to theories of welfare. The result is centered around a puzzle about the utility monster, defined as an individual whose lifetime quantity of welfare goods exceeds the overall quantity of welfare goods across an entire population of excellent human lives. The puzzle is about how to avoid MONSTROSITY, the claim that for any world containing only excellent human lives, there’s a better world containing only a lone utility monster. I show how the puzzle can be formulated with minimal assumptions about which theory of welfare is correct, how welfare and value are structured, and even whether the utility monster has an especially good life. The argument demonstrates that that it’s impossible to deny MONSTROSITY while accepting several other plausible premises. The upshot is that any future axiology must be monstrous, in one way or another.

► This event is hybrid. Join in person at the Centre for Ethics (Larkin Building room 200) or online here.

Andrew Lee

Professor of Philosophy
University of Toronto

Wed, Jan 22, 2025
04:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin