 Parfit is not the first philosopher to have noticed that influential moral views may have implications of the sort outlined in the Repugnant Conclusion. Henry Sidgwick was close to acknowledging the implication when he pointed out that “… the point up to which, on utilitarian principles, population ought to be encouraged to increase, is not that at which the average happiness is the greatest possible—as appears to be often assumed by political economists of the school of Malthus—but that at which the happiness reaches its maximum” (Sidgwick 1907 p. 418; for other early sources, see Broad 1930 pp. 249–250; McTaggart 1927 pp. 452–53; Narveson 1967). However, it is Parfit who has brought the conclusion to recent philosophical attention both by stressing the importance of the conclusion and by showing how difficult it is to avoid it (Parfit 1984).