Almost every week there’s a headline about our planet’s population explosion. For instance Indian officials confirmed recently that India is projected to overtake China in just over a decade – to become the most populous country on Earth. Many are worried that the planet is becoming increasingly overpopulated. Whether it is overpopulated, underpopulated, or appropriately populated is a challenging ethical question.
We face very important decisions about climate change policy, healthcare prioritization, energy consumption, and global catastrophic risks. To what extent can the field of population ethics contribute to real-world decisions on issues like these? This is one of the central questions being pursued by researchers in the Population Ethics: Theory and Practice project at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. The project, overseen by Dr Hilary Greaves, officially began earlier this month, and will continue (at least in its present form) for three years. The research team aims to make progress in theoretical population ethics, and to assess its relevance to pressing practical issues that affect future generations.
