Equality, priority, and compassion

Abstract

This article explores the moral foundations of distributive justice, focusing on the concepts of equality, priority, and compassion. It argues that traditional egalitarianism, which seeks to minimize undeserved inequality, is ultimately flawed due to the “Levelling Down Objection,” which suggests that egalitarianism can lead to outcomes where everyone is worse off without any overall gain in welfare. The author then examines the priority view, which emphasizes giving greater weight to benefiting those who are worse off. However, he argues that the priority view also faces difficulties, as it can lead to counterintuitive consequences, such as prioritizing small benefits for those who are already well off over substantial benefits for the worst off. He concludes that both egalitarianism and the priority view are inadequate, and proposes a new principle based on compassion, which he defines as a virtue of an impartial spectator who is particularly concerned with the welfare of those who are badly off. The compassion principle prioritizes benefiting those below a certain threshold of welfare, above which compassion no longer applies. The author discusses the difficulties of determining the appropriate threshold and explores the potential implications for nonhuman animals. – AI-generated abstract