Counting Years of Life: Some Reflections on Numbers Skepticism
Vol.27,No.1(2026)
In this paper, I discuss John Taurek’s (1977) famous attempt to undermine the moral significance of numbers in situations in which one is expected to choose whom to save from harm. Taurek famously argued that the number of people affected by one’s choice should not be a morally relevant factor in determining how one should act in conflict cases. While Taurek’s approach has obvious counterintuitive implications, I suggest that one way to avoid them while still preserving the spirit of his argument is to focus on the number of years a person is expected to live.
aggregation; fairness; John Taurek; no-worse claim; numbers; potential life-years
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