Competing Claims and the Separateness of Persons

Abstract

I argue that the use of the separateness of persons in the debate between the priority view and the competing claims view is deeply flawed. In making the case, I argue for three points. First, that the actual argument against the priority view relies on intuitions about the worse off that has no connection to the separateness of persons. Second, that the competing claims view is derivative of Thomas Nagel’s pairwise comparison view. However, Nagel’s justification for pairwise comparisons is based on an interpretation of equality and not the separateness of persons. Third, I offer various interpretations of the separateness of persons and conclude that that the competing claims view violates most interpretations of the separateness of persons. Further, the one that is compatible with the competing claims view leads to the tyranny of the worst off.

Notes

1 For the canonical statement of the priority view, see Derek Parfit, ‘Equality or Priority?’

2 Michael Otsuka and Alex Voorhoeve, ‘Why It Matters That Some Are Worse Off Than Others: An Argument against the Priority View’.

3 Alex Voorhoeve and Marc Fleurbaey, ‘Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons’.

4 Roger Crisp, ‘In Defence of the Priority View: A Response to Otsuka and Voorhoeve’; Andrew Williams, ‘The Priority View Bites the Dust?’; Martin O’Neill, ‘Priority, Preference, and Value’; Thomas Porter, ‘In Defence of the Priority View’; Derek Parfit, ‘Another Defence of the Priority View’; Greg Bognar, ‘Empirical and Armchair Ethics’; Matthew Rendall, ‘Priority and Desert’ Benjamin Lange, ‘Restricted Prioritarianism or Competing Claims?’.

5 Keith Hyams, ‘Hypothetical Choice, Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons’.

6 Parfit, ‘Equality or Priority?’ 101.

7 Ibid., 104.

8 Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey, ‘Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons,’ 397.

9 Otsuka and Voorhoeve, ‘Why it Matters,’ 181.

10 Michael Otsuka, ‘Prioritarianism and the Separateness of Persons,’ 368.

11 Ibid., 370.

12 Ibid., 371.

13 The prudential objection was made by Otsuka in a solo-authored paper. However, the paper’s content largely expand and clarify the objections he and Voorhoeve made in ‘Why it Matters.’ Therefore, I am assuming that Voorhoeve agrees.

14 Crisp, ‘In Defense of the Priority View,’ 359–63.

15 Otsuka and Voorhoeve, ‘Why it Matters,’ 184.

16 Ibid., 172.

17 Although Porter does raise an objection as to whether the survey data actually supports what Otsuka and Voorhoeve claim. See ‘In Defense of the Priority View,’ 353 n. 6.

18 For an example of a good intuitive argument that begins with an essentially non-controversial premise that leads to a controversial conclusion, see Peter Singer, ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’.

19 Otsuka, ‘Prioritarianism and the Separateness of Persons,’ 370–71 n. 12.

20 Thomas Nagel, ‘Equality’.

21 Ibid., 127.

22 Ibid., 116–17.

23 Ibid., 117–18.

24 Ibid., 123.

25 Their argument is directed at any egalitarian theory that is only concerned about the extent of inequality. Since Hyams argues this objection is aimed at brute luck egalitarianism, that is why I am using the term. For those unfamiliar with brute luck egalitarianism, it is more commonly known as luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarian theories claim that inequality that results from unchosen circumstances are unjustified while inequality from calculated gambles is justified.

26 Given that there is no causal connection between the two, there is no reason why you could not simply intervene to help Blair and leave Alice alone. I will argue later that this lack of causality creates a problem for the argument beyond the implausibility of the examples.

27 Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey, ‘Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons,’ 383.

28 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 26–27.

29 Ibid., 29.

30 Alastair Norcross, ‘Two Dogmas of Deontology’.

31 Dennis McKerlie, ‘Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons’.

32 David Brink, ‘The Separateness of Persons, Distributive Norms, and Moral Theory’.

33 Brink argues that the separateness of person’s does not lead to the moralized SRC view. Rather, he thinks the argument made by Rawls, Nagel, and Scanlon should be viewed as that the separateness of persons supports contractualism and that contructualism supports a moral asymmetry for determining benefits and burdens. See Brink, ‘The Separateness of Persons’, 275–76.

34 The moralized SRC does not hold that the separateness of persons requires that we benefit the worst off; it merely claims there is an asymmetry in burdens and harms based on the type of burden and one’s standing in society. Thus, high taxes for the rich may not be a sacrifice, but high taxes on the worst-off would be. The requirement that we benefit the worst-off would be supplied by alternative principles (e.g., principle of justice).

35 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 33.

36 Voorhoeve, and Fleurbaey, ‘Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons’, 381.