Abstract: Prioritarianism is supposed to be a theory of the overall good that captures the common intuition of "priority to the worse off". But it is difficult to give precise content to the prioritarian claim. Over the past few decades, prioritarians have increasingly responded to this 'content problem' by formulating prioritarianism not in terms of an alleged primitive notion of quantity of well-being, but instead in terms of von Neumann-Morgenstern utility. The resulting two forms of prioritarianism (which I call, respectively, "Primitivist" and "Technical" prioritarianism) are not mere variants on a theme, but are entirely distinct theories, amenable to different motivating arguments and open to different objections. This paper argues that the basic intuition of "priority to the worse off" provides no support for Technical Prioritarianism: qua attempt to capture that intuition, the turn to von Neumann-Morgenstern utility is a retrograde step.
Stockholm Philosophy Colloquium: Hilary Greaves (Oxford)
EVENEMANG
Datum:
13 mars 2014 16:00
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13 mars 2014 17:45
Plats: D416
Plats: D416
Title: Antiprioritarianism, room: D416
Senast uppdaterad:
7 mars 2014
Webbredaktör:
Daniel Ramöller
Sidansvarig: Filosofiska institutionen