[SydPhil] On The Importance Of Being Necessary: Michael Plant, 3.00 in the Muniment Room

[Kristie Miller]

Michael Plant:  Thursday @ 3.00 in the Muniment Room


On The Importance Of Being Necessary


Abstract: This paper motivates and attempts to defends Necessitarianism, the person-affecting view in population ethics on which the only persons who matter are those who exist whatever we do. I begin by outlining Ralph Bader’s recent arguments for the ‘same-number’ person-affecting view. I claim that, while his arguments are compelling, they undermine his proposed view and instead support Necessitarianism (the ‘same-people’ person-affecting view). Necessitarianism faces three putative objections: (1) it is intransitive, (2) it gets the wrong answer in ‘Non-Identity’ cases, (3) the view is implausible unless conjoined with the Procreative Asymmetry, but the Procreative Asymmetry is hard to justify. I show Necessitarianism isn’t intransitive and propose both that, on reflection, it gets the right answer in Non-identity cases and that accepting a Procreative Symmetry is not implausible.



Everyone welcome.




Associate Professor Kristie Miller
ARC Future Fellow
Joint Director, the Centre for Time
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and
The Centre for Time
The University of Sydney
Sydney Australia
Room 407, A 14

kmiller at usyd.edu.au
kristie_miller at yahoo.com
Ph: +612 9036 9663
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/ArOOCMwvLQTP89MQtwLee6?domain=kristiemiller.net
















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