Objections to the “repugnant conclusion” Using seemingly sound logical steps, David Parfit reached the “repugnant conclusion” that a world of very many people with very good lives is worse than a world with a huge number of people with lives that are barely worth living. I will outline his argument and conclusion, then explain how we can circumvent that counterintuitive notion by reconsidering how we measure and compare people's well-being. I argue that all people intrinsically deserve some level of well-being that exceeds that of a life that is barely worth living, and which cannot be compensated for by an increase in the number of people. Parfit asks us to compare different populations and evaluate the validity of each of these scenarios. In every population every individual deserves the same amount of well-being. These populations are represented below, where the width of the block represents the number of individuals and the height represents the amount of well-being: the taller the blocks, the greater the well-being. There are few people in population A, but each of them has a relatively high level of well-being. The A+ population is the same scenario with the addition of people who each have a lower level of well-being, but their lives are still worth living. Despite the inequality, Parfit argues that adding deserving lives can never make an outcome worse, so the goodness of the outcome in Population A+ is at least as good as the outcome in Population A. Population B has the same number of individuals as Population A+ it does and these two populations have the same average well-being, but the distribution of well-being is the same in population B. Perhaps, the better-off ones in population A+ have transferred some of their well-being to the less well-off ones... middle of paper... ...children may be able to pursue other things that would increase their happiness. There are many other benefits, and birth control has already been provided in many countries (developing and developed) where before it was inaccessible and women were mostly extremely willing and happy to use it; freedom and free will improve people's lives. Population Z isn't too far-fetched, and similar versions already exist in some parts of the world, as well as in famine- and disease-stricken, war-torn areas that are much worse. Works Cited Arrhenius, Gustaf, Ryberg, Jesper and Tännsjö, Torbjörn, “The Repugnant Conclusion,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Parfit, Derek (2004). "Overpopulation and quality of life". In J. Ryberg & T. Tännsjö (Eds.), The repugnant conclusion. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 7-22.