Leximin population ethics

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Ethics
• Economics

Background:

• Policy decisions significantly impact population size and characteristics.
• Ethical considerations are crucial for social security, resource allocation, and fertility policies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and characterize Leximin principles for social evaluation in an intertemporal framework.
• To enable comparisons of social alternatives with varying population sizes.

Main Methods:

• Characterization of Leximin principles using axioms like Hammond Equity and Independence of the Utilities of the Dead.
• Application of Positional Leximin Consistency for non-constant critical levels.
• Comparison of Critical-Level Leximin and Positional-Extension Leximin in pure population problems.

Main Results:

• The study provides characterizations for Critical-Level Leximin and Positional-Extension Leximin principles.
• Ethical attractiveness of Critical-Level Leximin principles is demonstrated over Positional-Extension Leximin.

Conclusions:

• Critical-Level Leximin principles offer a more ethically robust framework for intertemporal social evaluation.
• The findings inform ethical decision-making in population-affecting policies.