On Limited Aggregation

Tomlin, Patrick

doi:10.1111/papa.12097

Cited by 35 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…While benefits are still aggregated on this view, adding more better off beneficiaries adds little to the value of a distribution. Several other modified versions of aggregation have been suggested (see Casal, 2007: 320-321;Hirose 2014;Voorhoeve 2014;Tomlin 2017;Lazar 2018;Privitera 2018).…”

Section: Number Of Beneficiariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enough is too much: the excessiveness objection to sufficientarianism

Knight¹

2021

Economics and Philosophy

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The standard version of sufficientarianism maintains that providing people with enough, or as close to enough as is possible, is lexically prior to other distributive goals. This article argues that this is excessive – more than distributive justice allows – in four distinct ways. These concern the magnitude of advantage, the number of beneficiaries, responsibility and desert, and above-threshold distribution. Sufficientarians can respond by accepting that providing enough unconditionally is more than distributive justice allows, instead balancing sufficiency against other considerations.

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Section: Number Of Beneficiariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enough is too much: the excessiveness objection to sufficientarianism

Knight¹

2021

Economics and Philosophy

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“…37 For example, we might allow 10 complaints against quadriplegia to outweigh one complaint against death, even though no amount of frustration could outweigh one complaint against death. We accept that this approach raises both conceptual puzzles-we may face sorites problems 39 -and operationalisation problems-how should we decide whether complaints are relevant, and, if so, how should they be commensurated? We discuss such concerns in the fourth section.…”

Section: Contracting Out Of Lockdownmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costa, cancer and coronavirus: contractualism as a guide to the ethics of lockdown

John

Curran

2021

J Med Ethics

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Lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involve placing huge burdens on some members of society for the sake of benefiting other members of society. How should we decide when these policies are permissible? Many writers propose we should address this question using cost-benefit analysis (CBA), a broadly consequentialist approach. We argue for an alternative non-consequentialist approach, grounded in contractualist moral theorising. The first section sets up key issues in the ethics of lockdown, and sketches the apparent appeal of addressing these problems in a CBA frame. The second section argues that CBA fundamentally distorts the normative landscape in two ways: first, in principle, it allows very many morally trivial preferences—say, for a coffee—might outweigh morally weighty life-and-death concerns; second, it is insensitive to the core moral distinction between victims and vectors of disease. The third section sketches our non-consequentialist alternative, grounded in Thomas Scanlon’s contractualist moral theory. On this account, the ethics of self-defence implies a strong default presumption in favour of a highly restrictive, universal lockdown policy: we then ask whether there are alternatives to such a policy which are justifiable to all affected parties, paying particular attention to the complaints of those most burdened by policy. In the fourth section, we defend our contractualist approach against the charge that it is impractical or counterintuitive, noting that actual CBAs face similar, or worse, challenges.

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“…This problem was originally noticed by Patrick Tomlin. 26 Roughly, the problem is that ARC has very counterintuitive implications in cases in which there are additions or subtractions to the groups of people we can save.…”

Section: Purely Deontic Partially Aggregative Viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partial aggregation in ethics

Horton

2021

Philosophy Compass

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Is there any number of people you should save from paralysis rather than saving one person from death? Is there any number of people you should save from a migraine rather than saving one person from death? Many people answer 'yes' and 'no', respectively. The aim of partially aggregative moral views is to capture and justify combinations of intuitions like these. These views contrast with fully aggregative moral views, which imply that the answer to both questions is 'yes', and with non-aggregative moral views, which imply that the answer to both questions is 'no'. In this article, I review the most natural and influential ways of developing partially aggregative views and explain the main problems they face. 1 | INTRODUCTION According to the moral view known as Act Utilitarianism, we should always maximize aggregate well-being. This view has plausible implications in a wide range of cases. However, it has very counterintuitive implications in cases in which we can save either a few people from severe burdens or many people from minor burdens. Suppose that in Death v Migraines: We can save either X from death or a huge number of people from migraines. Intuitively, we should save X, no matter how many people face migraines. But Act Utilitarianism implies that, if enough people face migraines, we should instead save them, for the well-being at stake for them will sum to more than the well-being at stake for X. There are other moral views that have this implication in Death v Migraines, and that have corresponding implications in equivalent cases. We can say that these views are fully aggregative. Act Utilitarianism is probably the most influential fully aggregative view, but these views can take many other forms. They can endorse moral options, which permit us to give extra weight to our own well-being and the well-being of those we love; require us to respect moral constraints, such as constraints against killing and breaking promises; and direct us to give extra weight to the well-being of the badly off. 1

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On Limited Aggregation

Cited by 35 publications

References 0 publications

Enough is too much: the excessiveness objection to sufficientarianism

Enough is too much: the excessiveness objection to sufficientarianism

Costa, cancer and coronavirus: contractualism as a guide to the ethics of lockdown

Partial aggregation in ethics

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