Spears Dean
Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, Delhi, India.
Economics Department, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA.
Soc Choice Welfare. 2017 Jun;49(1):145-169. doi: 10.1007/s00355-017-1055-7. Epub 2017 May 16.
Is a larger population of people living good lives a better population, all else equal? This question is central to population issues in social welfare, ethics, and policy. Many answers in the philosophical literature argue that if a policy choice results in the birth of additional people living good lives, these extra lives are irrelevant to any evaluation of the policy. This paper applies the questionnaire-experimental method of empirical studies of social choice to investigate participants' policy choices and social orderings with respect to population size and average well-being. In general, heterogeneous responses depended on the quantitative and qualitative properties of the question. In particular, an experimentally manipulated increase in population size caused an option to be more likely to be selected, on average. Overall, responses suggest that population size is not neutral to social welfare. Many participants, although not all, reported that a larger population of people living good lives could be strictly preferable, at small or no costs to average well-being.
在其他条件相同的情况下，更多过着美好生活的人构成的群体就是更好的群体吗？这个问题是社会福利、伦理学及政策领域中人口问题的核心。哲学文献中的许多答案认为，如果一项政策选择导致更多过着美好生活的人出生，那么这些额外的生命与对该政策的任何评估都无关。本文运用社会选择实证研究的问卷调查实验方法，来调查参与者关于人口规模和平均福祉的政策选择及社会排序。总体而言，不同的回答取决于问题的数量和质量属性。特别是，实验操纵的人口规模增加平均而言会使一个选项更有可能被选中。总体而言，回答表明人口规模对社会福利并非中立。许多参与者（尽管并非全部）报告称，更多过着美好生活的人构成的群体可能在对平均福祉造成微小成本或无成本的情况下绝对更可取。
