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EQUALITY VERSUS PRIORITY: A USEFUL DISTINCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2015

John Broome
John Broome*
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford OX1 4JF, UK. Email: [email protected]. URL: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfop0060/.
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Abstract:

Both egalitarianism and prioritarianism give value to equality. Prioritarianism has an additively separable value function whereas egalitarianism does not. I show that in some cases prioritarianism and egalitarianism necessarily have different implications: I describe two alternatives G and H such that egalitarianism necessarily implies G is better than H whereas prioritarianism necessarily implies G and H are equally good. I also raise a doubt about the intelligibility of prioritarianism.

Keywords

EgalitarianismPrioritarianismUtilitarianismFairness
Type
Symposium on Equality versus Priority
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 219 - 228
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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