1 / 16

carrying capacity and human welfare: a very difficult problem

. total utilitarian max.. . Malthus. . right-to-lifer'sideal. . . Average utilitarian maxima. note: the repugnant conclusion... All of this assumes that income=welfare, which is unrealistic. Population density affects welfare (in ways not captured by income measures)too sparse ? no culturetoo packed ? low quality of lifeNo consensus about how to define/measure welfare.

JasminFlorian
Download Presentation

carrying capacity and human welfare: a very difficult problem

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

    1. Carrying Capacity and Human Welfare: A VERY difficult problem George Loewenstein

    4. All of this assumes that income=welfare, which is unrealistic Population density affects welfare (in ways not captured by income measures) too sparse ? no culture too packed ? low quality of life No consensus about how to define/measure welfare

    5. Alternative measures/definitions of welfare Wealth (income) Happiness Capabilities (and other check-list approaches)

    8. Problems with happiness… Adaptation

    9. Subjects 71 patients at University of Michigan Medical Center who had received colostomy or ileostomy paid $25 per completed survey Approached while still in the hospital recovering from their surgery, and asked to participate Interviewed three times: 1 week after release from the hospital one month after release six months after release Surveys included two measures of overall quality of life: 5-item ‘satisfaction with life scale' (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) 'ladder scale', (Cantril, 1967); asks participants where on a 0–10 ladder they stand at the present time. The top of the ladder (10) represents the best possible life for them, and the bottom (0) represents the worst possible life.

    11. Problems with happiness… Leaves out lots of stuff that people care about

    14. Capabilities (Sen & Nussbaum) Identify set of widely agreed upon desiderata Nussbaum’s basic capabilities: Life Bodily health and integrity Bodily integrity 4. Senses, imagination, thought. Emotions. Practical reason. Affiliation. Other species. Play. Control over one's environment Political Material Strength: appeals to widespread values Weaknesses Arbitrariness? Measurement aggregation

    16. Summary philosophical problems bedevil the problem of examining the relationship between welfare and population measurement problems also create significant problems: no consensus about how to measure welfare different measures will lead to different conclusions about the relationship between population and welfare

More Related