Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the Quality of Life Strategy as a means of defending the Repugnant Conclusion. The Repugnant Conclusion is a controversial theorem about population size. It states that enormous populations of lives that are barely worth living can be better than small populations of high-quality lives. This is highly counter-intuitive. The basic structure is familiar to philosophers as that of a paradox.