Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T13:58:34.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Prospects for ‘Prospect Utilitarianism’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2022

Ben Davies Open the ORCID record for Ben Davies [Opens in a new window]
Ben Davies*
Affiliation:
Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
*
benjamin.davies@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Hun Chung argues for a theory of distributive justice – ‘prospect utilitarianism’ – that overcomes two central problems purportedly faced by sufficientarianism: giving implausible answers in ‘lifeboat cases’, where we can save the lives of some but not all of a group, and failing to respect the axiom of continuity. Chung claims that prospect utilitarianism overcomes these problems, and receives empirical support from work in economics on prospect theory. This article responds to Chung's criticisms of sufficientarianism, showing that they are misplaced. It then shows that prospect utilitarianism faces independent problems, since it too requires a threshold, which Chung bases on the idea of ‘adequate functioning’. The article shows that there are problems with this as a threshold, and that it is not empirically supported by prospect theory.

Type
Reply
Information
Utilitas , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 2022 , pp. 335 - 343
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benbaji, Yitzakh. 2006. The Doctrine of Sufficiency: A Defence. Utilitas 17: 310–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bognar, Greg. 2015. Fair Innings. Bioethics 29: 251–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chung, Hun. 2017. Prospect Utilitarianism: A Better Alternative to Sufficientarianism. Philosophical Studies 174: 1911–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crisp, Roger. 2003. Equality, Priority and Compassion. Ethics 113: 745–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1981. Equality of What? Part I: Equality of Welfare. Philosophy and Public Affairs 10: 185–246.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 1987. Equality as a Moral Ideal. Ethics 98: 21–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, Robert. 1999. Treating like Cases Alike, Intergenerationally and Internationally. Policy Sciences 32: 189–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herlitz, Anders, and Eyal, Nir. Forthcoming. Input and Output in Distributive Theory. Noûs. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12392.Google Scholar
Huseby, Robert. 2010. Sufficiency: Restated and Defended. The Journal of Political Philosophy 18: 178–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. 1979. Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. Econometria 47: 263–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huseby, Robert. 2020. Sufficiency and the Threshold Question. The Journal of Ethics 24: 207–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKerlie, Dennis. 2012. Justice Between the Young and the Old (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1859/2003. On Liberty in ‘Utilitarianism’ and ‘On Liberty’ ed. by Warnock, Mary (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 88–180.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Lasse. 2019. Sufficiency and Satiable Values. Journal of Applied Philosophy 36: 800–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roemer, John. 2004. Eclectic Distributional Ethics. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 3: 267–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shields, Liam. 2018. Just Enough: Sufficiency as a Demand of Justice (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).Google Scholar
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel. 1986. Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions. The Journal of Business, 59: 251–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar