The Repugnant Conclusion is an implication of some approaches to population ethics. It states, in Derek Parfit's original formulation,

This article provides the first systematic interpretation of the moral theory developed in Newcome's Enquiry into the Evidence of the Christian Religion (1728, revised 1732). More importantly, it shows that Newcome's views constitute a valuable but overlooked contribution to the development of utilitarianism. Indeed, she is arguably the first utilitarian. Her ethical views are considered in two stages. The article first explores her hedonist approach to the good and then turns to her consequentialist account of right action. The article then situates Newcome's work within the context of the pre-Bentham utilitarian movement. Strikingly, Newcome lived and worked in close proximity to other prominent early utilitarians and was well positioned to have exerted an influence on the development of their views. Newcome has never been discussed in connection with the history of ethics. This article constitutes an argument for her inclusion in our narratives about the development of a major moral theory.

One prominent welfarist axiology, critical-level utilitarianism, says that individual lives must surpass a specified ‘critical level’ in order to make a positive contribution to the comparative status of a given population. In this article I develop a new dilemma for critical-level utilitarians. When comparatively evaluating populations composed of different species, critical-level utilitarians must decide whether the critical level is a universal threshold or whether the critical level is a species-relative threshold. I argue that both thresholds lead to a range of axiological puzzles and objections as yet undiscussed within the literature, and therefore conclude that critical-level utilitarianism should not be taken as a morally plausible welfarist axiology. I show that certain competitive formulations of critical range utilitarianism are subject to the argument too, and that further attempts to relativise critical levels to a particular group or category of welfare bearer (in particular, individual-relative critical levels) are unsustainable.

Many consider Nozick's “utility monster” – a being more efficient than ordinary people at converting resources into wellbeing, with no upper limit – to constitute a damning counterexample to utilitarianism. But our intuitions may be reversed by considering a variation in which the utility monster starts from a baseline status of massive suffering. This suggests a rethinking of the force of the original objection.

Despite the prominence of thresholds in theories of distributive justice, there is no general account of what sort of role is played by the idea of a threshold within such theories. This has allowed an ongoing lack of clarity and misunderstanding around views that employ thresholds. In this article, I develop an account of the concept of thresholds in distributive justice. I argue that this concept contains three elements, which threshold views deploy when ranking possible distributions. These elements are (i) the level of the threshold, (ii) what constitutes the value of the threshold, and (iii) how benefits above and below the threshold must be allocated. I highlight three contributions that this particular account of thresholds makes: it clarifies the nature of the shift that occurs at the threshold; it resolves a common misunderstanding about headcount principles; and it shows how the arbitrariness objection can be met.

Mill defines utilitarianism as the combination of a “theory of life” and a moral claim: only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends, and the promotion of happiness is the sole goal of moral action. So defined, utilitarianism is open to ad hominem pessimistic objection: a “theory of life” which entails the impossibility of happiness fits poorly with a morality centered on its promotion. The first two challenges Mill confronts in Utilitarianism share this pessimistic structure. Interestingly, however, these challenges paint inverted pictures of the best utilitarian life: one suggests this life is satisfying but ignoble, the other that it is noble but unsatisfying. I explain Mill's treatment of both challenges as genuinely pessimistic interpretations of utilitarianism's “theory of life.” Read through the lens of Mill's engagement with pessimism, these challenges point to distinctive conceptions of dignity and satisfaction that play a significant role in Mill's ethics.

While it is permissible to switch the trolley in the classic Switch case, it is not permissible to push the stranger in the classic Footbridge (aka, ‘Push’) case. But what may we do in cases that offer both a ‘switch-like’ option and a ‘push-like’ option? Surprisingly, we may choose the push-like option, provided that it has better consequences than the switch-like option. We arrive at this conclusion by taking ourselves seriously – not just as agents who might redirect threats – but as threats who might be redirected by agents.

It is widely held that agent-neutral consequentialism is incompatible with deontic constraints. Recently, Kieran Setiya has challenged this orthodoxy by presenting a form of agent-neutral consequentialism that he claims can capture deontic constraints. In this reply, we argue against Setiya's proposal by pointing to features of deontic constraints that his account fails to capture.

In a discussion of Parfit's Drops of Water case, Zach Barnett has recently proposed a novel argument against “No Small Improvement”; that is, the claim that a single drop of water cannot affect the magnitude of a thirsty person's suffering. We first show that Barnett's argument can be significantly strengthened, and also that the fundamental idea behind it yields a straightforward argument for the transitivity of equal suffering (a much stronger and more important conclusion than Barnett's). We then suggest that defenders of No Small Improvement could reject a Pareto principle that is presupposed in Barnett's argument and our developments of it. However, this does not save No Small Improvement, since there is a convincing argument against this claim that does not presuppose the Pareto principle.