The Rejection of Prioritarianism

Since the late 1990’s, a group of moral doctrines called prioritarianism has received a lot of interest from many moral philosophers. Many contemporary moral philosophers are attracted to prioritarianism to such an extent that they can be called prioritarians. In this book, however, I reject prioritarianism, including not only “pure” prioritarianism but also hybrid prioritarian views which mix one or more non-prioritarian elements with prioritarianism. This book largely revolves around certain problems and complications of prioritarianism and its particular forms. Those problems and complications are connected to risk, impartiality, the arbitrariness of prioritarian weightings and possible future individuals. On the one hand, I challenge prioritarianism through targeted objections to various specific forms of prioritarianism. All those targeted objections are connected to risk or possible future individuals. It seems to me that together they give good grounds for believing that prioritarianism is not the way to go. On the other hand, I challenge prioritarianism by pointing out and discussing certain general problems of prioritarianism. Those general problems are connected to impartiality and the arbitrariness of prioritarian weightings. They may give additional grounds for believing that all prioritarian views should be rejected. Prioritarianism can be seen as a type of weighted utilitarianism and thus as an extension of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is morally ultimately concerned, and morally ultimately concerned only, with some kind of maximization of utility or expected utility. Prioritarianism, on the other hand, is morally ultimately concerned, and morally ultimately concerned only, with some kind of maximization of priority-weighted utility, expected priority-weighted utility or priority-weighted expected utility. Thus prioritarianism, unlike utilitarianism, is a distribution-sensitive moral view. Besides rejecting prioritarianism, I reject also various other distribution-sensitive moral views in this book. However, I do not reject distribution-sensitivity in morality, as I end up endorsing a type of distribution-sensitive hybrid utilitarianism which mixes non-utilitarian elements with utilitarianism.