Abstract
Most people have the intuition that, when we can save the lives of either a few people in one group or many people in another group, and all other things are equal, we ought to save the group with the most people. However, several philosophers have argued against this intuition, most famously John Taurek, in his article 'Should the Numbers Count?' They argue that there is no moral obligation to save the greater number, and that we are permitted to save either the many or the few. I argue in this article that, even if we are almost completely persuaded by these 'numbers sceptics', we ought not to just save the few. If the choice is simply between saving the many or the few, we ought to save the many.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 275-288 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Utilitas |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 21 Apr 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
I am grateful to Joe Horton, Jessica J. T. Fischer, three anonymous referees, and the audience of the London Graduate Philosophy Conference and Value X Conference (University of Sheffield) for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press.