Replication Ethics

TL;DR

This paper explores the ethical implications of future technologies that could enable identical repetitions of human lives, raising questions about their moral value and significance in population ethics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel discussion on the ethical considerations of life repetition technologies, a previously overlooked aspect of population ethics.

Findings

Highlights ethical questions about the value of repeated lives

Proposes that the moral significance depends on context and perception

Suggests future relevance for population ethics debates

Abstract

Suppose some future technology enables the same consciously experienced human life to be repeated, identically or nearly so, N times, in series or in parallel. Is this roughly N times as valuable as enabling the same life once, because each life has value and values are additive? Or is it of roughly equal value as enabling the life once, because only one life is enabled, albeit in a physically unusual way? Does it matter whether the lives are contemporaneous or successive? We argue that these questions highlight a hitherto neglected facet of population ethics that may become relevant in the not necessarily far distant future.