Value and Population Size

It is foolish to think that the consequentialist principles we use to assess the values of different populations could ever be the only principles in an acceptable moral theory. They have to be accompanied by supplementary principles setting constraints which we must not violate while pursuing our population goals and which we must not violate in particular by taking the lives of existing people. If we are to assess population principles as population principles then we must assess them in circumstances where these constraints do not apply that is in circumstances where only increases and not decreases in the human population are in question. (excerpt)