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UTILITARIANISM AND PRIORITARIANISM II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

David McCarthy
David McCarthy*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Abstract

The priority view has become very popular in moral philosophy, but there is a serious question about how it should be formalized. The most natural formalization leads to ex post prioritarianism, which results from adding expected utility theory to the main ideas of the priority view. But ex post prioritarianism entails a claim which is too implausible for it to be a serious competitor to utilitarianism. In fact, ex post prioritarianism was probably never a genuine alternative to utilitarianism in the first place. By contrast, ex ante prioritarianism is defensible. But its motivation is very different from the usual rationales offered for the priority view. Given the untenability of ex post prioritarianism, it is more natural for most friends of the priority view to revert to utilitarianism.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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