Tradition
Prioritarianism
Overview
Prioritarianism, the priority view, or priority to the worst off is a perspective within ethics and political philosophy stating that "social welfare orderings should give explicit priority to the worse off". Prioritarianism resembles utilitarianism, and is likewise a form of aggregative consequentialism.
The term "prioritarianism" was coined by the moral philosopher Larry Temkin. Richard Arneson, a proponent of the view, offers the following formulation:
Prioritarianism holds that the moral value of achieving a benefit for an individual (or avoiding a loss) is greater, the greater the size of the benefit as measured by a well-being scale, and the greater, the lower the person's level of well-being over the course of her life apart from receipt of this benefit.
Prioritarianism is one interpretation of distributive justice and is often pitted against egalitarianism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Cruelty-- Contempt, or little sense of the calamity of others, is that which men call CRUELTY; proceeding from Security of their own fortune. For, that any man should take pleasure in other mens’ great harmes, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
States what Prioritarianism is.
This does not belong to God, since, as the Apostle says: "Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?" (Rom. 11:35). The other consists in distribution, and is called distributive justice; whereby a ruler or a steward gives to each what his rank deserves. As then the proper order displayed in ruling a family or any kind of multitude evinces justice of this kind in the ruler, so the order of the…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
States what Prioritarianism is.
Beyond duty, lies the sphere of conscience and of religion. And that is not the mere insistence by the individual to have a voice and a vote in determining the social order. It is the sense that the social order, however omnipotent it may seem, is limited and finite, and that man has in him a kindred with the Eternal.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
States what Prioritarianism is.
Related ideas
- Egalitarianism
- John Rawls
- Distributive justice
- Hedonism
- Reflective equilibrium
- Monism
- Political philosophy
- Utilitarianism
- Compassion
- Intrinsic value (ethics)
- Occam's razor
- Portmanteau
- Consequentialism
- Ethical intuitionism
- Ethics
Place in the tradition
Part of Applied ethics.