The dilemma between repugnancy and sadism extends beyond critical-level utilitarianism

Abstract We consider axioms under which population principles face an unavoidable choice between accepting the Repugnant Conclusion or the Very Sadistic Conclusion. Our analysis reveals that this dilemma persists even without imposing the axiom of Anonymity. This significantly broadens the ethical implications when considering populations that differ in temporal, spatial or probabilistic dimensions or when including non-human populations. Imposing Existence Independence, combined with an Archimedean axiom that we term the Strict Limit Property, is sufficient for the dilemma to arise. These findings substantially generalize previous impossibility results in population ethics and highlight the inescapable trade-offs faced by any coherent population principle.