We present the first comprehensive theory of fairness that conceives of fairness as having two dimensions: a comparative and an absolute one. The comparative dimension of fairness has traditionally been the main interest of Broomean fairness theories. It has been analysed as satisfying competing individual claims in proportion to their respective strengths. And yet, many key contributors to Broomean fairness agree that ‘absolute’ fairness is important as well. We make this concern precise by introducing the Fairness formula and the absolute (...) priority rule and analyse their implications for comparative fairness. (shrink)

According to a common view, in a case involving an indivisible good and several potential beneficiaries, who are equal in every relevant respect, there is a non-instrumental reason to allocate the benefit in a way that gives each an equal chance to receive the benefit. In this paper, I argue that this view is incompatible with several plausible and widely held assumptions. I emphasize especially the assumption that the distributive role of chances is secondary to that of benefits in an (...) important sense: the value of allocating chances is related to the ways in which it is possible to allocate the relevant benefits. Specifically, chances should be allocated only when it is impossible or too costly to allocate benefits in accordance with the relative importance of the reasons in favor of allocating the relevant benefit to each potential beneficiary. Given this assumption, I argue that the fact that there is no relation between the distributive concern for chances and other distributive concerns suggests that we should reject the view that chances have a distributive role that is not merely instrumental. (shrink)

This article addresses a dilemma about autonomous vehicles: how to respond to trade-off scenarios in which all possible responses involve the loss of life but there is a choice about whose life or lives are lost. I consider four options: kill fewer people, protect passengers, equal concern for survival, and recognize everyone’s interests. I solve this dilemma via what I call the new trolley problem, which seeks a rationale for the intuition that it is unethical to kill a smaller number (...) of people to avoid killing a greater number of people based on numbers alone. I argue that killing a smaller number of people to avoid killing a greater number of people based on numbers alone is unethical because it disrespects the humanity of the individuals in the smaller-numbered group. I defend the recognize-everyone’s-interests algorithm, which will probably kill fewer people but will not do so based on numbers alone. (shrink)

In the event of a pandemic, demand for vaccines may exceed supply. One proposal for allocating vaccines is to use a lottery, to give all citizens an equal chance, either of getting the vaccine or of surviving. However, insistence on strict equality can result in seriously suboptimal outcomes. I argue that the requirement to treat all citizens impartially need not be interpreted to require equal chances, particularly where citizens are differently situated. Assuming that we want to save lives, we should (...) also seek to use vaccine efficiently, so far as this is compatible with equality. Thus, in allocating vaccine, we may want to be sensitive to different levels of need and/or effects on vaccine production. While such policies may result in unequal chances, they may even improve everyone’s chances. In such cases, the resultant inequality is not a violation of impartiality, but a consequence of considering each person’s claim seriously. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel account of how complaints of unfairness arise in risky distributive cases. According to a recently proposed view in distributive ethics, the Competing Claims View, an individual has a claim to a benefit when her well-being is at stake, and the strength of this claim is determined by the expected gain to the individual’s well-being, along with how worse off the individual is compared to others. If an individual is at a lower level of well-being than (...) another, their claim to a given benefit is stronger. On this view, the strength of individuals’ claims are a function of their comparative well-being levels. In this paper, I instead argue that competing claims obtain only when a particular relationship obtains between the fates of individuals: that one individual’s gain is at the expense of another. This is a particular complaint that obtains when the fates of individuals are tied together in such a way that inequality that is to the detriment of the person who is worse off is guaranteed to obtain. I demonstrate that this complaint arises only when individuals are exposed to a particular type of risk that allows some to gain only if others lose. As such, I propose that complaints of unfairness occur less frequently than we might think if we take the Competing Claims View to be true. A purely comparative view is unable to account for this unique complaint of unfairness. I argue that this complaint is not only independently plausible, but can serve as a foundation for a more general account of competing claims complaints. (shrink)

Discounting future costs and benefits is often defended on the ground that our descendants will be richer. Simply to treat the future as better off, however, is to commit an ecological fallacy. Even if our descendants are better off when we average across climate change scenarios, this cannot justify discounting costs and benefits in possible states of the world in which they are not. Giving due weight to catastrophe scenarios requires energetic action against climate change.

Sometimes, two unfair distributions cancel out in aggregate. Paradoxically, two distributions each of which is fair in isolation may give rise to aggregate unfairness. When assessing the fairness of distributions, it therefore matters whether we assess transactions piecemeal or focus only on the overall result. This piece illustrates these difficulties for two leading theories of fairness before offering a formal proof that no non-trivial theory guarantees aggregativity. This is not intended as a criticism of any particular theory, but as a (...) datum that must be taken into account in constructing a theory of fairness. (shrink)

This paper argues that close personal relationships play an important role in our judgments about what is fair. I start with an explanation of leading theories of fairness, highlighting the potential for further work on the grounds of fairness. Next, I offer an account of close personal relationships as having the ability to generate legitimate and reasonable expectations of one or other party to a judgment about fairness, or both. I show how and when close personal relationships can ground fairness.

Philosophical theories of fairness propose to divide a good that several individuals have a claim to in proportion to the strength of their respective claims. We suggest that currently, these theories face a dilemma when dealing with a good that is indivisible. On the one hand, theories of fairness that use weighted lotteries are either of limited applicability or fall prey to an objection by Brad Hooker. On the other hand, accounts that do without weighted lotteries fall prey to three (...) fairness paradoxes. We demonstrate that division methods from apportionment theory, which has hitherto been ignored by philosophical theories of fairness, can be used to provide fair division for indivisible goods without weighted lotteries and without fairness paradoxes. (shrink)

In the recent literature across philosophy, medicine and public health policy, many influential arguments have been put forward to support the use of randomization procedures to allocate scarce life-saving resources. In this paper, I provide a systematic categorization and a critical evaluation of these arguments. I shall argue that those arguments justify using RAND to allocate SLSR in fewer cases than their proponents maintain and that the relevant decision-makers should typically allocate SLSR directly to the individuals with the strongest claims (...) to these resources rather than use RAND to allocate such resources. (shrink)

This thesis is about the moral reasons we have to do less than best. It consists of six chapters. Part I of the thesis proposes, extends, and defends reasons to do less than best. In Chapter One (“The Conditional Obligation”) I outline and reject two recent arguments from Joe Horton and Theron Pummer for the claim that we have a conditional obligation to bring about the most good. In Chapter Two (“Agglomeration and Agent-Relative Costs”) I argue that agent-relative costs can (...) justify permissions to less than best in a far greater range of decisions contexts than we currently believe. In Chapter Three (“Risk and Aggregation”) I discuss how anti-aggregative moral theories deal with risk, whilst proposing an argument in favour of ex-post moral theories. -/- In Part II of the thesis, I discuss longtermism, presenting a series of reasons to believe we have both significant permissions and obligations to prioritise those in the short-term. In Chapter Four (“Listening to Future People”) I criticise a recent argument presented by Andreas Mogensen for the claim we cannot have obligations grounded in the wellbeing of future people. I then show that, even permitting the existence of obligations to future people, we still have significant reasons to resist longtermism on the grounds of partiality. In Chapter Five (“The Complaints of Future People”) I argue that scepticism about aggregation is inconsistent with an obligation, or indeed even a permission, to help far future people. In Chapter Six (“Leaving the Present Behind”) I explore the moral significance of “dooming”, whilst arguing that we have a pro tanto reason of fairness to prioritise aiding those currently in existence. (shrink)