Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T13:15:40.894Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EQUALITY VERSUS PRIORITY: HOW RELEVANT IS THE DISTINCTION?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2015

Marc Fleurbaey
Marc Fleurbaey*
Affiliation:
Woodrow Wilson School and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, 326 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544USA. Email: [email protected]. URL: http://wws.princeton.edu/faculty-research/faculty/mfleurba.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This paper questions the distinction between egalitarianism and prioritarianism, arguing that it is important to separate the reasons for particular social preferences from the contents of these preferences, that it is possible to like equality and separability simultaneously, and that some egalitarians and prioritarians may therefore share the same social preferences (though for different reasons). The case of risky prospects, for which Broome has proposed an interesting example meant to show that egalitarians and prioritarians cannot share the same preferences, is scrutinized. The levelling down objection is also examined.

Keywords

Equalitypriorityriskseparability
Type
Symposium on Equality versus Priority
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 203 - 217
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ben Porath, E., Gilboa, I. and Schmeidler, D.. 1997. On the measurement of inequality under uncertainty. Journal of Economic Theory 75: 194–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, J. 1991. Weighing Goods. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 2015. Equality versus priority: a useful distinction. Economics and Philosophy 31: 219–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deschamps, R. and Gevers, L.. 1979. Separability, risk-bearing, and social welfare judgments. In Aggregation and Revelation of Preferences, ed. Laffont, J.-J., 145–160. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Hammond, P. J. 1982. Utilitarianism, uncertainty and information. In Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Sen, A. K. and Williams, B., 85–102. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. 2015. Equality versus priority: a misleading distinction. Economics and Philosophy 31: 229–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen, J. A. 1997. Theories of justice and their implications for priority setting in health care. Journal of Health Economics 16: 625–639.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parfit, D. 1995. Equality or Priority? The Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas.Google Scholar
Rabinowicz, W. 2001. Prioritarianism and uncertainty: on the interpersonal addition theorem and the priority view. In Exploring Practical Philosophy: From Action to Values, ed. Egonsson, D., Josefsson, J., Petersson, B., Ronnow-Rasmussen, T., and Persson, I., 139–165. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Temkin, L. 1993. Inequality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 2000. Equality or Priority in Health Care Distribution. Mimeo, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Vallentyne, P. 2002. Brute luck, option luck, and equality of initial opportunities. Ethics 112: 529–557.CrossRefGoogle Scholar