 One might also try to solve the Mere Addition Paradox by an appeal to egalitarian considerations. Consider population A and A+ in figure 2 again. According to a well-known principle, Maximin, we should rank populations according to the welfare of the worst off: The lower the welfare of the worst off, the worse the population. Maximin ranks A+ as worse than A and thus stops the Mere Addition Paradox in its first step. However, Maximin has a number of other counterintuitive implications in population ethics since it imposes a kind of dictatorship of the worst off according to which the slightest gain in welfare for one of the worst of person outweighs a very large loss for any number of better off people.