The most influential egalitarian perspective is undoubtedly Rawls's (1971, 1993), which assigns absolute priority to the least advantaged in society (the difference principle). However, many have claimed that even though an egalitarian perspective should imply some priority to the worst off, the Rawlsian perspective is too demanding. One response to this criticism is to argue in favour of an egalitarian perspective that never assigns absolute priority to the worse off, but which still includes limited priority to those members of society (...) in distributive conflicts. A different response to the demandingness criticism is to agree that the worse off should not always be given absolute priority, but to argue that there are some cases where they should be. In this paper, we elaborate on this view, and look at the possibility of deviating from the leximin approach within this category of egalitarian principles. (shrink)

La présente contribution vise à offrir au lecteur une présentation de la doctrine suffisantiste de la justice, de ses justifications générales et spécifiques et de son articulation possible avec d’autres théories de la justice. Elle explore certains aspects plus particuliers tels que la place de la responsabilité en son sein, son applicabilité au domaine intergénérationnel ou son positionnement par rapport à la question des « vies-complètes ». Elle montre aussi en quoi, quelles que soient les faiblesses possibles de cette doctrine, (...) elle présente des caractéristiques la rendant non redondante, en particulier par rapport à l’égalitarisme du leximin.This paper aims at presenting sufficientarianism, its justifications, specificities and the ways in which it can be combined with other theories of justice. We also explore more specific dimensions such as the place of responsibility-sensitivity, the doctrine’s application to the intergenerational realm or its interest for « complete-life » questions. We show to what extent, despite some weaknesses, it is not redundant when compared to or combined with leximin egalitarianism. (shrink)

Entre les états (2, 3) et (2, 4), le Principe de Différence (PD) choisit-t-il le premier, le second, ou est-il indifférent? Cette dernière interprétation est confortée par le choix par Rawls des courbes en L pour illustrer le PD (Rawls 1999 [1971], § 13, fig. 5), formellement analogue au Maximin en théorie de la décision, et qui admettrait des courbes d’indifférence ; une fois le plus mal loti maximisé, on est indifférent entre les états des mieux lotis ; le (...) class='Hi'>Leximin enjoint lui de choisir le second état, puisqu’il réitère le PD sur le dernier plus mal loti. La plupart des commentateurs choisissent le Leximin ; or ce principe est inégalitaire, car il peut laisser s’enrichir les riches alors que les pauvres stagnent. Le PD sélectionne en fait le premier état. Si l’on peut passer du premier état au second, on doit pouvoir passer du premier à un état (2+n, 3-n). Le PD est univoque, différent du Maximin et du Leximin, qui peut favoriser des sociétés duales, où seuls les riches s’enrichissent. On n’a pu généraliser le résultat à plus de deux classes, même en tenant compte de la « connexion en chaîne », laquelle exprime l’idée fondamentale de Rawls : la solidarité via la coopération.Code JEL : I13. (shrink)

The present paper constitutes an introduction to a special issue of Diametros devoted to Setting Health-Care Priorities. What Ethical Theories Tell Us by Torbjörn Tännsjö. The book in question states that there are three moral theories which have valid implications in the field of the distribution of medical resources in a healthcare system: utilitarianism, the maximin/leximin view, and egalitarianism. A number of authors have contributed to this special issue with papers which challenge this thesis. Robert E. Goodin argues that, (...) besides general moral theories, some local principles of justice might be valid. Quinn Hiroshi Gibson states that Tännsjö should have considered the Rawlsian view on justice in its contractualist reading. Jay A. Zameska argues that his “revised lexical sufficientarianism” constitutes a more reliable moral view than prioritarianism. Finally, Lasse Nielsen points out that there is more to say about distributive justice than consequentialist theories can grasp. Moreover, he puts forward an argument in defense of prioritarianism. The final article in this issue constitutes Tännsjö’s replies to his critics. (shrink)

Selon Rawls, le PD permet de regarder les différences de talents comme un « atout commun ». Le libertarien Nozick y a vu l’aveu par Rawls que sa société se rend propriétaire de nos personnes, faites de nos talents propres. C’est un sophisme : seule la distribution des dons peut être vue comme un bien commun, fournissant une palette de complémentarités possibles qui est un atout commun (voir Smith sur la division du travail, comme le note Arrow). Arrow a peut-être (...) hésité sur ce point, mais il a finalement opté, comme Rawls et Nozick, pour l’idée que nous possédons nos talents, à ceci près que nous ne pouvons les développer que dans un cadre social qui rend légitime (contra Nozick) que l’impôt nous reprenne une partie de nos bénéfices pour aider les plus démunis à sortir de leur misère. Le PD éloigne de la pure méritocratie. Via Pascal, cité par Arrow, on en revient à l’importance de la notion de personne dans toute approche non utilitariste, plaidant pour la coopération entre économie et philosophie, par exemple pour généraliser le PD à plus de deux classes, si c’est possible sans entamer la souhaitable simplicité cognitive des principes de justice, ni détruire le système des incitations. Classification JEL : I13. (shrink)

This paper aims to illuminate some issues in the equality, priority, or what debate. I characterize egalitarianism and prioritarianism, respond to the view that we should care about sufficiency or compassion rather than equality or priority, discuss the levelling down objection, and illustrate the significance of the distinction between prioritarianism and egalitarianism, establishing that the former is no substitute for the latter. In addition, I respond to Bertil Tungodden's views regarding the Slogan, the levelling down objection, the Pareto Principle, (...) class='Hi'>leximin, the principle of personal good, strict moderate egalitarianism, the Hammond Equity Condition, the intersection approach, and non-aggregative reasoning. (shrink)

We propose a new principle of 'non-interference' applied to social welfare orderings. The principle, together with two other standard requirements, implies a strong egalitarian conclusion: the ordering must lexicographically maximize the welfare of the worst off.

We shall focus on moral theories that are solely concerned with promoting the benefits (e.g., wellbeing) of individuals and explore the possibility of such theories ascribing some priority to benefits to those who are worse off—without this priority being absolute. Utilitarianism (which evaluates alternatives on the basis of total or average benefits) ascribes no priority to the worse off, and leximin (which evaluates alternatives by giving lexical priority to the worst off, and then the second worst off, and so (...) on) ascribes absolute priority to the worse off (i.e., favors even a very small benefit to a worse off person over very large benefits to large numbers of better off people). Neither extreme view, we assume, is plausible. (shrink)

L’ambiguïté qui existe entre l’interprétation du principe de différence par le maximin ou par le leximin est reconsidérée. Le maximin satisfait seulement le principe de Pareto-faible (x>y ssi chaque composante de x > la composante correspondante de y), tandis que le leximin satisfait le principe de Pareto-fort. À la différence du maximin, le leximin n’est pas représentable par des courbes d’indifférence. Dans la position originelle, le choix leximin l’emporterait sur le choix maximin ((2, 4) > (2,3)), (...) qui semble plus proche des formulations de Rawls. Plusieurs solutions de l’ambiguïté sont évoquées, notamment celle que propose Alain Boyer, qui consiste à distinguer le maximin et le principe de différence en précisant que le second est le premier couplé à une règle tierce, la minimisation de l’inégalité. Cette solution, qui s’appuie par ailleurs sur un raisonnement suspect de Rawls sur la possibilité de trouver un troisième vecteur en enlevant n au plus riche, ce qui semble présupposer, comme le fait Boyer, que l’existence du fisc redistributeur est reconnue comme une possibilité dans la position originelle, est jugée insuffisante, en ce qu’elle ne vaut que pour le cas de deux individus (même si Rawls parle de deux classes). On suggère d’utiliser, pour les cas où le nombre des individus ou des classes est >2, un critère tel que la variance. Mais cela s’avère toujours insuffisant, et non justifiable dans la position originelle, et l’on fait appel à la théorie de la décision proposée par Gilboa et Schmeidler (1989 ; 1997) pour suggérer, par exemple, que le choix juste à faire entre (1, 2, 3) et (0, 3, 3) se porte sur le second état (où le plus pauvre a moins que dans l’autre cas). Cette règle demeure cependant plus proche du maximin (généralisé) que du leximin, peut être rapprochée de ce que l’on appelle le prioritarisme, et peut donc conserver une coloration appréciablement rawlsienne. (shrink)

Price discrimination is widely considered unethical/unfair by consumers, as has been borne out by decades of psychological research and mainstream press reporting. However, little academic work has been done to investigate the ethics of price discrimination. The work that has been done to date concludes that while price discrimination is not unethical, despite widespread lay perceptions, it is at best morally neutral. We argue price discrimination ismoreethical than unitary pricing, when done ‘progressively,’ meaning firms charge customers as a function of (...) their willingness-to-pay. We introduce this specific kind of price discrimination as ‘Progressive Pricing’ and demonstrate it ethically outperforms a ‘Unitary Pricing’ scheme (where everyone pays the same price, regardless of their willingness-to-pay), at least within a broadly consequentialist framework. We do this by comparing a Unitary Pricing scheme to a Progressive one, analyzing them through the lenses of four different consequentialist ‘Social Welfare Functions’ (Utilitarian, Egalitarian, Prioritarian, and Leximin), which are used by welfare economists and philosophers to rank the distributions of different social outcomes, concluding that Progressive Pricing is preferred regardless of which Social Welfare Function(s) one finds most plausible. (shrink)

A double ambiguity has been charged against Rawls’s difference principle (DP). Is it Maximin, Leximin, or something else? Usually, following A. Sen, scholars identify DP with the so-called Leximin. One argues here that one has to distinguish 1° the Leximin, 2° the Maximin (as rule of justice formally analogous to the maximin rule of decision), represented by the figure in L of the perfectly substitutable goods, and 3° the genuine DP. When the augmentation of inequality benefits the (...) worse off, only Pareto-strong improvements are permitted. Leximin would also permit Pareto-weak improvements too (after the first maximum D), where only the richest improves: from (2, 3) to (2, 5), say. This is forbidden by DP. With two classes, unlike Maximin, DP has no curve of indifference and is always decisive, as Leximin is. For undecisive Rules of Justice, which admit indifferent curves, I propose to add a lexically secondary rule, to break ties. That move is able to clarify the links and the differences between on the one hand Maximin alone, with its typical indifference curves in L, and on the other hand, the DP properly understood and the Leximin, which both have no indifferent curves. With two classes of persons (best off/worse off), DP appears more egalitarian than Leximin, because it's secondary rule is MinIn (Minimization of Inequality). But the intuition behind the distinction is that it cannot possible “fair” that only the best off improves in a productive social cooperation. (shrink)

Desire', 'preference', 'utility', '(utility-aggregating) moral desirability' are terms that build on each other in this order. The article follows this definitional structure and presents these terms and their justifications. The aim is to present welfare-ethical criteria of the common good that define 'moral desirability' as an aggregation, e.g. addition, of individual utility: utilitarianism, utility egalitarianism, leximin, prioritarianism.

Here is a picture of a society that one might suppose to be ideally just in its distributive practices: All members of the society are equally free to live in any way that they might choose, and institutions are arranged so that the equal freedom available to all is at the highest feasible level. What, if anything, is wrong with this picture? One might object against the insistence on equal freedom for all and propose that freedom should instead be maximinned, (...) or leximinned, or maximized, or distributed according to some alternative norm. In this essay I wish to set aside the choice of distributive norm. The question for this essay is whether freedom in any sense is the aspect of people's condition that is the right basis of interpersonal comparison for a theory of distributive justice. I approach this question by analyzing some rival conceptions of freedom. (shrink)

In this study I analyse the performance of a democratic decision-making rule: the weighted majority rule. It assigns to each voter a number of votes that is proportional to her stakes in the decision. It has been shown that, for collective decisions with two options, the weighted majority rule in combination with self-interested voters maximises the common good when the latter is understood in terms of either the sum-total or prioritarian sum of the voters’ well-being. The main result of my (...) study is that this argument for the weighted majority rule — that it maximises the common good — can be improved along the following three main lines. (1) The argument can be adapted to other criteria of the common good, such as sufficientarian, maximin, leximin or non-welfarist criteria. I propose a generic argument for the collective optimality of the weighted majority rule that works for all of these criteria. (2) The assumption of self-interested voters can be relaxed. First, common-interest voters can be accommodated. Second, even if voters are less than fully competent in judging their self-interest or the common interest, the weighted majority rule is weakly collectively optimal, that is, it almost certainly maximises the common good given large numbers of voters. Third, even for smaller groups of voters, the weighted majority rule still has some attractive features. (3) The scope of the argument can be extended to decisions with more than two options. I state the conditions under which the weighted majority rule maximises the common good even in multi-option contexts. I also analyse the possibility and the detrimental effects of strategic voting. Furthermore, I argue that self-interested voters have reason to accept the weighted majority rule. (shrink)

L’ Apologie de John Rawls a paru aux Puf en 2018. Son objectif principal était le suivant : à supposer que la critique rawlsienne de la notion (ou de l’absence de la notion) de la personne dans la pensée utilitariste soit fondée, est-il légitime, étant donné la caractérisation par Rawls de son « principe de différence », de retourner sa propre critique anti-utilitariste contre lui, en arguant que lui non plus ne permet pas de fonder une notion concrète et complexe (...) de personne, ne laissant au lecteur qu’un pseudo-soi, purifié, hyper-abstrait, nouménal, détaché et désencastré de tout, une personne sans qualités, sans talents, aussi peu épaisse que la pseudo-personne utilitariste justement dénoncée par l’auteur de la TJ lui-même? Il s’agit donc de prendre au sérieux et de réfuter un argument de type Tu Quoque!, lequel retourne contre un argumentateur l’un de ses arguments critiques, en montrant que, malgré qu’il en eût, il tombe lui-même sous la critique qu’il a émise contre une tierce position. Cette stratégie argumentative, légitime, a été utilisée contre la TJ d’abord par Nozick, puis reprise et approfondie par le « communautarien » républicain anti-libéral Michael Sandel, et considérée comme valide par de nombreux auteurs. L’Apologie tente donc de répondre à cette accusation, et l’acquittement de John Rawls est proposé au lecteur. Ce ne sont pas les talents qui appartiennent au collectif, mais leur distribution différente peut être utilisée par la société comme fournissant une base adéquate pour des complémentarités et des coopérations bénéfiques à tous et en particulier aux plus démunis. L’argument de Nozick selon lequel le principe de différence n’est pas compatible avec tous les concepts parétiens est repris comme étant quant à lui valide. Une erreur terminologique sur les progressions parétiennes forte/faibles est ici corrigée. De plus, on tente d’y résoudre une perplexité sensible à la fin du chapitre V de l’Apologie. Il y a trois interprétations possibles du principe de différence, dont l’une est le simple maximin, et l’autre le leximin. On argue que ce principe n’est ni l’un ni l’autre, mais qu’il est formé par le couple lexicalement ordonné maximin et minimisation des inégalités, ce qui rend le principe de différence décisif, comme le leximin, sans courbes d’indifférence, comme en a le maximin. Malheureusement, cette caractérisation ne fonctionne qu’avec deux classes. Il faut sans doute admettre qu’il y a moins d’intuitions fortes concernant le sort des différentes classes moyennes pour définir la justice que concernant les actifs sur tout une vie, respectivement, des plus riches et des plus pauvres. Mais dans ce cas simple, représentable sur le plan, l’ambiguïté qui persistait dans l’Apologie est ici éliminée. (shrink)

The seminal contribution of Sen (1976) led to a new way to conceptualize and measure absolute poverty, by arguing for the need to ‘take note of the inequality among the poor’ (Sen 1976: 227). Since then, the ‘Inequality’ of poverty has become the third ‘I’ of poverty, which together with the ‘Incidence’ and the ‘Intensity’ of it constitute the dimensions deemed relevant for poverty evaluation. In this paper, we first argue that the interest in the third ‘I’ of poverty actually (...) originates from aprioritarian(Parfit 1995) rather than an egalitarian attitude. Further, we illustrate the inability of the three ‘I's to fully comprise the criteria for the assessment of poverty which are de facto adopted by existing poverty indices. Some of them resolve distributional conflicts by following leximin, hence assigning a pivotal role to the worst off. We question the desirability of leximin, and conclude that giving absolute priority to the worst off is plausible only in cases where the latter has been identified by an exogenous threshold demarcating a significant difference in human suffering. Finally, we explore to what extent prioritarianism and the sufficiency argument of Frankfurt (1987), Crisp (2003) and Casal (2007) can help conceptualize giving absolute priority to individuals or groups indentified by exogenous (poverty and ultra-poverty) thresholds. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I discuss two distributive principles in moral philosophy: Derek Parfit's Prioritarianism and Egalitarianism. I attempt to defend a version of Egalitarianism, which I call Weighted Egalitarianism. Although Parfit claims that Egalitarianism is subject to what he calls the Levelling Down Objection, I show that my proposed Weighted Egalitarianism is not subject to the Objection, and that it gives priority to the worse off people. The real difference between the two principles lies in how the weight of each (...) person's well-being is determined. Prioritarianism assumes that there is a moral scale of the goodness of well-being, independently of distributions of people's well-being. I raise two objections to this claim: firstly, it is hard to believe that the choice of the level of well-being affects our distributive judgement; secondly, it is hard to believe that there is such a moral scale independently of distributions of people's well-being. On the other hand, Weighted Egalitarianism claims that the weight is given by the rank order position of the person in the ranking by well-being level. This means that, in Weighted Egalitarianism, the goodness of a distribution is an increasing, linear function of people's well-being. Weighted Egalitarianism is not affected by the choice of the level of people's well-being. Nor does it require require the moral scale of the goodness of well-being independently of distributions of people's well-being. Leximin, which might be a version of Prioritarianism, avoids my objections. But it is hard to support Leximin, because it rules out the trade off between the better off and the worse off. I conclude that Weighted Egalitarianism is more acceptable than Prioritarianism. (shrink)

This paper concerns Philippe Van Parijs’s case for an unconditional basic income. It argues that given central egalitarian commitments-to wit, (i) equal concern and respect; (ii) endowment-insensitivity (which can be seen to include Van Parijs’s project of maximizing or leximinning real freedom); (iii) ambition-sensitivity; and (iv) neutrality-endorsed by Van Parijs, a basic income does not appear to be a requirement of justice. The core claim defended is that there is a serious tension between (iii) and the idea of an unconditional (...) basic income. (shrink)

The axioms adopted by Packard (1981) and Heiner and Packard (1983) for plausibility ranking of sets of statements are critically examined. It is shown that the informational requirement of the Heiner-Packard (1983) framework is much stronger than Packard's (1981) framework and hence both axiomatic setups are examined separately. A characterization of the leximin rule is provided in Packard's framework and the nonintuitive implications of the Heiner-Packard (1983) axioms are discussed. It is also demonstrated that in both frameworks, minor variations (...) of some of the axioms convert the characterization results into logical impossibilities. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and explore an alternative to a standard prioritarian axiology. Equality-tempered prioritarianism holds that the value of welfare increases should be balanced against the value of equality. However, given that, under prioritarianism, the value of marginal welfare benefits decreases as the welfare of beneficiaries increases, equality-tempered prioritarianism holds that the intrinsic value of equality will be sufficient to alter a prioritarian verdict only in cases in which welfare benefits are granted to the very well-off. I argue (...) that this view, suitably refined, solves a persistent problem for prioritarianism, and is superior to alternatives. (shrink)

Over the years, egalitarian philosophers have made some challenging claims about the nature of egalitarianism. They have argued that egalitarian reasoning should make us reject the Pareto principle; that the Rawlsian leximin principle is not an egalitarian idea; that the Pigou–Dalton principle needs modification; that the intersection approach faces deep problems; that the numbers should not count within an egalitarian framework, and that egalitarianism should make us reject the property of transitivity in normative reasoning. In this paper, taking the (...) recent philosophical debate on equality versus priority as the starting point, I review these claims from the point of view of an economist. (shrink)

In this commentary on Torbjörn Tännsjö’s Setting Health-Care Priorities, I argue that sufficientarianism provides a valuable perspective in considering how to set health care priorities. I claim that pace Tännsjö, sufficientarianism does offer a distinct alternative to prioritarianism. To demonstrate this, I introduce sufficientarianism and distinguish two forms: Tännsjö’s “weak sufficientarianism” and an alternative strong form of sufficientarianism that I call “revised lexical sufficientarianism.” I raise a problem for Tännsjö’s sufficientarianism, and advocate for the revised view on this basis. I (...) then demonstrate that in the area of population ethics, the revised view outperforms the other views Tännsjö considers. As such, I aim to demonstrate that sufficientarianism — understood as its own theory and not just as a form of prioritarianism — offers unique advantages in population ethics, and would have been a valuable complement to the other theories Tännsjö considers. (shrink)

We here address the question of how, for a theory of justice, a concern for the promotion of equality can be combined with a concern for making people as well off as possible. Leximin, which requires making the worst off position as well off as possible, is one way of combining a concern for making people’s lives go well with a special concern for those who are especially poorly off. Many egalitarians, however, reject its near-monomaniacal focus on the worst (...) off position (to the exclusion of other poorly off persons). In this paper, we explore the possibility of combining a weak kind of egalitarianism with a weak kind of efficiency requirement in a way that avoids leximin’s obsession with the worst off position. For example, one may consider solving all cases where efficiency is not at issue by choosing the alternative that is most equal according to the Gini-coefficient or some other well-established inequality measure. All standard inequality measures sometimes judge an alternative as more equal than another alternative even though the latter maximizes the benefits of the worst off. Thus it may seem like a promising way of avoiding the leximin approach within an egalitarian framework. Surprisingly, given certain generally accepted assumptions, this turns out to be impossible. The only possible way of combining weak egalitarianism with weak efficiency requires, we shall show, the rejection of a widely accepted—but perhaps dubious—contraction consistency condition on justice or the acceptance of some version of the leximin principle. (shrink)

The present paper discusses the views of Noble Laureate Amartya Sen with reerence o his book Resourses, Values and Development and in relation to his existential emphasis on moral foundation of policy-making. Sen deviates from traditional welfare econamics. He feels that utilitarianism is sensitive to total benefit of different persons; while maximin or leximin principle cares for the worst-off.

Tännsjö’s book Setting Health-Care Priorities defends the view that there are three main normative theories in the domain of distributive justice, and that these theories are both highly plausible in themselves, and practically convergent in their normative conclusions. All three theories point to a somewhat radical departure from the present distribution of medical resources: in particular, they suggest redirecting resources from marginal life extension to the care of mentally ill patients. In this paper I wish to argue, firstly, that prioritarianism (...) should not be considered as an amendment to utilitarianism, as it is in Tännsjö’s view, but as a distinctive fourth option. This can best be appreciated if we focus on a reading of the theory that emphasizes its derivation from egalitarianism and its attempt to develop an intermediate approach between utilitarian and egalitarian intuitions. Secondly, in response to Tännsjö’s central objection to prioritarianism, I will argue that the theory does not apply in intrapersonal cases but is only relevant for decisions regarding the interpersonal distribution of benefits. Finally, I will suggest that a practical convergence of the four theories on specific issues such as artificial reproduction or mood enhancement is far less likely than Tännsjö seems to believe. (shrink)

The difference principle, introduced by Rawls (1971, 1993), is generally interpreted as leximin, but this is not how he intended it. Rawls explicitly states that the difference principle requires that aggregate benefits (e.g., average or total) to those in the least advantaged group be given lexical priority over benefits to others, where the least advantaged group includes more than the strictly worst off individuals. We study the implications of adopting different approaches to the definition of the least advantaged group (...) and show that, if acyclicity is required, several seemingly plausible approaches lead to something close to leximin. We then show that significant aggregation is possible, if the least advantaged group is defined as those with those with less benefits than some strictly positive transform of the lowest level of benefits. Finally, we discuss the implications of requiring that, in comparing two alternatives, the cutoff for the least advantaged group of one alternative be the same as that for the other alternative. (shrink)

The article provides answers to comments in this journal on my recent book, Setting Health-Care Priorities. What Ethical Theories Tell Us. Did I address all of the relevant theories? Yes, I did. Was my argument underdeveloped in any respects? Yes, at least in one as I should perhaps have discussed contractual ethical thinking more carefully. I do so in this response. Moreover, the critical comments raised have helped me to clarify my argument in many ways, for which I thank my (...) critics. (shrink)