Prioritarianism is a moral view that ranks outcomes according to the sum of a strictly increasing and strictly concave transformation of individual well-being. Prioritarianism is ‘welfarist’ (namel...

Torbjörn Tännsjö has written a clear and thought-provoking book on healthcare priority setting. He argues that different branches of ethical theory—utilitarianism, egalitarianism, and prioritarianism—are in general agreement on real-world healthcare priorities, and that it is human irrationality that stands in the way of complying with their recommendations. While I am generally sympathetic to the overall project and line of argumentation taken by the book, this paper raises two concerns with Tännsjö’s argument. First, that he is wrong to set aside deontic (...) constraints as irrelevant or as pointing in the same direction as consequentialism. Secondly, that his argument against prioritarianism in favor of utilitarianism is insufficient and under-developed. Given these problems, I conclude that we should welcome Tännsjö’s contribution but with these qualifications in mind. (shrink)

The most common argument against negative utilitarianism is the world destruction argument, according to which negative utilitarianism implies that if someone could kill everyone or destroy the world, it would be her duty to do so. Those making the argument often endorse some other form of consequentialism, usually traditional utilitarianism. It has been assumed that negative utilitarianism is less plausible than such other theories partly because of the world destruction argument. So, it is thought, someone who finds theories in the (...) spirit of utilitarianism attractive should not go for negative utilitarianism, but should instead pick traditional utilitarianism or some other similar theory such as prioritarianism. I argue that this is a mistake. The world destruction argument is not a reason to reject negative utilitarianism in favour of these other forms of consequentialism, because there are similar arguments against such theories that are at least as persuasive as the world destruction argument is against negative utilitarianism. (shrink)

I develop the recent claim that prioritarianism, and not only its egalitarian competitors, must be committed to an impersonal outcome value (i. e. a value that makes a distribution better even if this does not affect anyone’s welfare). This value, that I label telic priority and that consists in the goodness of benefits going to the worst off recipients, implies implausible judgments that more than compete with ‘pure’ (Parfit) egalitarianism’s applause in leveling down scenarios. ‘Pure prioritarianism’, an axiological theory that (...) would consist in an unqualified commitment to telic priority only, must therefore be developed into a pluralist version of the priority view. Contra Parfit, prioritarianism and egalitarianism are on a par concerning the relationship between their pure (and implausible) formulations and their pluralist (and plausible) versions. The final section explains why telic priority always assigns preference to the worst-off (and not merely to the worse-off). (shrink)