Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900)Derek Parfit's "repugnant conclusion" was foreshadowed by Victorian philosopher Henry Sidgwick. Sidgwick was an ethical hedonist in the utilitarian tradition of Bentham and Mill. In The Methods of Ethics, (1874; 7th rev. edn 1907) Sidgwick argues that "... the point up to which, on utilitarian principles, population ought to be encouraged to increase, is not that at which the average happiness is the greatest possible - as appears to be often assumed by political economists of the school of Malthus - but that at which the happiness reaches its maximum" (Sidgwick 1907 p. 418)
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The Repugnant Conclusion: Essays on Population Ethics
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