Prioritarianism

In comparison with Confucian ethics, Confucian political philosophy has been significantly understudied in the contemporary scholarship. Part of the explanation for this fact is a common (mis)perception that ancient Confucianism has little, if any, to contribute to contemporary political philosophy, which is connected with a related (mis)perception that Confucianism is essentially an ethical theory, lacking a corresponding political vision. The so-called political philosophy in Confucianism is nothing but ethics for those particular individuals who happen to be rulers. These (mis)perceptions are now seriously challenged. A significant number of scholars have done serious work to bring the ancient Confucian tradition to bear on many important and urgent social and political issues we are facing today, often through engaging dialogues with contemporary Western political philosophers. The result is a fast-growing literature of a very high quality, in the form of not only journal articles and book chapters but also of monographs in the field of Confucian political philosophy. This volume is a partial reflection on contemporary Confucian political philosophy. This chapter, as an Introduction, aims to provide an overview of the state of the field, followed by outlines of the chapters that follow.

Prioritarianism is a distinctive moral view.  Outcomes are ranked according to the sum of concavely transformed well-being numbers—by contrast with utilitarianism, which simply adds up well-being.  Thus, unlike utilitarians, prioritarians give extra moral weight to the well-being of the worse off.  Unlike egalitarians, prioritarians endorse an axiom of person-separability: the ranking of outcomes is independent of the well-being levels of unaffected individuals.  Unlike sufficientists, who give no priority to the worse-off if their well-being exceeds a “sufficiency” threshold, prioritarians always favor the worse-off in conflicts with those at higher well-being levels. 

Derek Parfit is prioritarianism’s most famous proponent.  We have also defended prioritarianism.  Not everyone is persuaded.  Prioritarianism has been vigorously criticized, from a variety of perspectives, most visibly by John Broome, Campbell Brown, Lara Buchak, Roger Crisp, Hilary Greaves, David McCarthy, Michael Otsuka, Ingmar Persson, Shlomi Segall, Larry Temkin, and Alex Voorhoeve.  In this Article, we answer the critics.

Este trabajo pretende mostrar las ventajas de tener en cuenta los aportes de diversas ciencias a la hora de pensar cuestiones complejas de filosofía política -y los falsos caminos en los que podemos caer por ignorarlos.
Repasaremos las investigaciones del economista Fred Hirsch sobre el funcionamiento de las economías posicionales y sus consecuencias para el bienestar de los ciudadanos, las de la socióloga Juliet Schor sobre el modo en que la actuales tendencias en publicidad promueven la competencia posicional, afectando negativamente el bienestar infantil, y las investigaciones del epidemiólogo Richard Wilkinson y la antropóloga Kate Pickett sobre cómo el grado de desigualdad económica de un país afecta la calidad de las relaciones sociales y, con ella, la prevalencia de un amplio conjunto de problemas sociales y de salud, que constituyen indicadores indirectos del bienestar.
Estas investigaciones permiten configurar una imagen científicamente informada de nuestra naturaleza como animales sociales y del modo en que nos vemos afectados por los fines que perseguimos y por las estructuras sociales en las que vivimos, que es importante tener en cuenta a la hora de definir las reglas que deberían regir la vida social, así como también a la hora de evaluar los costos en términos de bienestar de distintas políticas públicas, entre ellas las políticas medio-ambientales.
Mostraremos que estas investigaciones quitan plausibilidad a posturas muy influyentes en el debate sobre la justa distribución del ingreso, como son las posturas suficientista y prioritarista, al tiempo que ponen en evidencia la falsedad de la antinomia sustentabilidad ecológica-bienestar, de la idea ampliamente difundida de que el freno al crecimiento económico y al consumo -necesario para evitar una crisis ambiental- deba implicar necesariamente un sacrificio en términos del bienestar de los ciudadanos.

PALABRAS CLAVE Igualitarismo – Suficientismo –Prioritarismo –Bienestar – Sustentabilidad – Bienes Posicionales


ABSTRACT

This paper intends to demonstrate the advantages of taking into account relevant findings from different sciences when thinking about complex problems of political philosophy –and the false paths that can thus be averted.
We will go through research by economist Fred Hirsch on the functioning of positional economies and its impact on citizen’s well-being. We will continue by reviewing research by sociologist Juliet Schor on how current trends in advertising work to exacerbate posicional competition, negatively affecting children’s well-being. Finally, we will present reseca by epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson and antropologist Kate Pickett on how a country’s level of economic inequality affects the quality of social relationships and the prevalence of a broad range of social and health problems, which can be seen as indirect marker of well-being.
These findings provide input for delineating a scientifically informed image of our nature as social animals, shedding light on the way we are affected by the ends we pursue and by the social structures we live in. Such information is relevant both to the task of defining the rules that should govern social life, and to that of assessing the welfare costs environmental or other public policies.
We aim to show that these findings make influential positions on the just distribution of income –such as sufficientism or prioritarism- less plausible, while also uncovering the falseness of the purported clash between well-being and ecological sustainability –of the widespread idea that the brake on growth and consumption that is needed to prevent an environmental crisis should necessarily imply a sacrifice in terms of the well-being of the citizenry.

KEY WORDS Egalitarianism – Sufficientism –Prioritarism –Well-being – Sustainability – Positional Goods

In Norway, priority for health interventions is assigned on the basis of three official criteria: health benefit, resources, and severity. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have mainly happened through intersectoral public health efforts such as lockdowns, quarantines, information campaigns, social distancing and, more recently, vaccine distribution. The aim of this article is to evaluate potential priority setting criteria for public health interventions. We argue in favour of the following three criteria for public health priority setting: benefit, resources and improving the well-being of the worse off. We argue that benefits and priority to the worse off may reasonably be understood in terms of individual well-being, rather than only health, for public health priority setting. We argue that lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic support our conclusions.