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UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO the Ethics of Distribution a Dissertation Submitted in Partial Satisfaction of the Requirem UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The Ethics of Distribution A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy by Theron Pummer Committee in charge: Professor Richard Arneson, Co-Chair Professor David Brink, Co-Chair Professor Dana Nelkin Professor David Schkade Professor Joel Sobel 2013 Copyright Theron Pummer, 2013 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Theron Pummer is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2013 iii DEDICATION This dissertation has benefited tremendously from feedback I have received from many friends, colleagues, and mentors. I therefore dedicate it to the many kind people listed in the Acknowledgements. iv EPIGRAPH …[W]hen we are choosing between two acts or policies, one relevant fact is how great the resulting benefits will be. For Utilitarians, that is all that matters. On their view, we should always aim for the greatest sum of benefits. But, for Egalitarians, it also matters how well off the beneficiaries would be. We should sometimes choose a smaller sum of benefits, for the sake of a better distribution. How can we make a distribution better? Some say: by aiming for equality between different people. Others say: by giving priority to those who are worse off. As we shall see, these are different ideas. Should we accept these ideas? Does equality matter? If so, when and why? What kind of priority, if any, should we give to those who are worse off? These are difficult questions, but their subject matter is, in a way, simple. It is enough to consider different possible states of affairs, or outcomes, each involving the same set of people. We imagine that we know how well off, in these outcomes, these people would be. We then ask whether either outcome would be better, or would be the outcome we ought to bring about. This subject we can call the ethics of distribution. Derek Parfit v TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………….. iii Dedication………………………………………………………………….... iv Epigraph……………………………………………………………………. v Table of Contents……………………………………………………………. vi List of Figures………………………………………………………………. viii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………….. ix Vita…………………………………………………………………………… xi Abstract………………………………………………………………………. xii Chapter 1: The Ethics of Distribution...…………………………………….. 1 1.1: The Distribution of Well-Being.…………….….………………. 1 1.2: Impartiality, Equal Weight, and Intuitionism….………………. 16 1.3: Outlandish Cases.………………………………………………. 24 Chapter 2: Equal Weight, Equality, or Priority…..…..…………………….. 28 2.1: The Equality View.…………………………………………….. 28 2.2: The Levelling-Down Objection and the Priority View.……….. 36 Chapter 3: Priority Monsters……………………………………………….. 45 3.1: Introduction to the Argument.…………………………………. 45 3.2: The Priority Monster Spectrum Argument……………………. 50 3.3: Tradeoffs, Parity, and the Conditional...………………………. 55 3.4: Well-Being, Lives, and Critical Thresholds..…………………. 66 3.5: Taking Stock..…………………………………………………. 84 3.6: Two More Monsters...…………………………………………. 87 Chapter 4: Numbers..……………………………………………………….. 95 4.1: Aggregating Spectrum Arguments…………………………….. 95 4.2: Pooled Priority…………………………………………………. 105 4.3: Intuitions about Large Number Cases…………………………. 120 Chapter 5: Vagueness……………………………………………………….. 141 5.1: Sorites Arguments…..…………………………………………. 141 5.2: Slight Differences………………………………………………. 144 5.3: Disanalogies……………………………………………………. 149 vi 5.4: Vagueness...……………………………………………………. 159 5.5: Parfit’s Solution to Spectrum Arguments..……………………. 165 Chapter 6: Transitivity.………………….………………………………….. 184 6.1: The Analytic Truth Argument…………………………………. 184 6.2: The Money Pump Argument.…………………………………. 193 6.3: The Dominance Argument.……………………………………. 200 6.4: The No Dilemmas Argument.…………………………………. 208 6.5: The Implosion Argument……...……………………………….. 223 Chapter 7: Concluding Chapter……………………………………………… 239 7.1: Undiagnosed Paradoxes?……………………………………….. 239 7.2: Least Implausible Conclusions...……………………………….. 244 7.3: Revisionary Intuitionism………………………………………... 259 Appendices Appendix A: The Separateness of Persons Argument for RM………. 265 Appendix B: Should Defenders of RM Also Accept AM?................... 279 Appendix C: Rational Prudence and Morality……………………….. 286 Appendix D: Triage Priority Views and Diminishing Priority Views.. 298 Appendix E: The Infection Problem…………………………………. 312 References…………………………………………………………………… 323 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Divided World……………………………………………………… 32 Figure 2: Levelling-Down…………………………………………………….. 37 Figure 3: A Dilemma for the Priority View…………………………………... 85 Figure 4: Betterness Mapping #1……………………………………………... 205 Figure 5: Betterness Mapping #2……………………………………………. 205 Figure 6: Betterness Mapping #3……………………………………………. 206 Figure 7: Possible Solutions…………………………………………………. 245 Figure 8: Three Children……………………………………………………… 272 Figure 9: Two Treatments…………………………………………………….. 274 Figure 10: Triage Priority Views……………………………………………… 301 Figure 11: Diminishing Priority Views………………………………………... 307 Figure 12: Asymptotically Diminishing Priority View………………………... 308 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, a partial list of those who have helped me mainly through conversations over e-mail or in person: Craig Agule, Gustaf Arrhenius, Amy Berg, Greg Bognar, Campbell Brown, Eric Campbell, Nancy Cartwright, Jonathan Cohen, Adam Cureton, Ruth Chang, Cory Davia, Dale Dorsey, Jamie Dreier, Aaron Elliott, Nir Eyal, Guy Fletcher, Daniel Halliday, Caspar Hare, Nils Holtug, Mike Huemer, Nat Jacobs, Charlie Kurth, Will MacAskill, John McMillan, Per Milam, Arne Norderhaug, Toby Ord, Mike Otsuka, Alan Patten, Thomas Pogge, Erick Ramirez, Matthew Rendall, Sam Rickless, Nate Rockwood, Don Rutherford, Joel Sobel, Adam Streed, Mike Tiboris, Kelly Vincent, and Gerard Vong. I would like to thank Saba Bazargan, Nick Beckstead, John Broome, and Tim Campbell for exceptionally useful written comments and interactions during my years as a PhD Student. The most helpful and extensive comments I have received came from my mentors at UCSD and Oxford: Dick Arneson, David Brink, Dana Nelkin, Roger Crisp, and Derek Parfit. These five people deserve special recognition for their incredible generosity, encouragement, and insight. I am profoundly indebted to them. In addition to Derek Parfit (whose influence on me should be easy to detect), the written work of Peter Singer, Larry Temkin, and Jeff McMahan has had a profound intellectual impact on me. I have been very fortunate to get to ix interact with each of them. In person and over e-mail, each of these philosophers has very kindly and substantially helped me. I am grateful to David DeGrazia for introducing me to ethics as an undergraduate, and I am grateful to David Brink, Dana Nelkin, Dick Arneson, and Jerry Doppelt for together reintroducing me to ethics as a graduate student. Finally, and on a more personal note, I would like to thank my parents, Mari and Doug, my parents-in-law, Jerry and Julie, my grandparents, Ray and Lorraine, all my siblings, my very good friend, Caley, and my wonderful wife, Sarah. I am thanking them for too many different things to even seriously attempt to list here, but suffice it to say that there is no way this dissertation would exist without their kindness. If you are reading this and have helped me, but are not on this list, I sincerely apologize. I promise I have not intentionally omitted you – my memory could be better. x VITA 2006 Bachelor of Science, George Washington University 2006-2013 Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant, and Instructor, University of California, San Diego 2010 Master of Arts, University of California, San Diego 2011 Recognized Student, University of Oxford 2013 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS “Intuitions about Large Number Cases” Analysis 73(1) (2013): 37-46 “Does Division Multiply Desert?” Philosophical Review 123(1) (2014) (forthcoming) xi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Ethics of Distribution by Theron Pummer Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of California, San Diego, 2013 Professor Richard Arneson, Co-Chair Professor David Brink, Co-Chair For any badly off person we consider, there could be someone who is much worse off. For example, suppose that Jane is the currently worst off person. Jane is so miserable that her life is worth not living. Nonetheless, one would be much worse off than Jane if one were as miserable as her at each time, but lived for much longer. Since there could be such persons who would live indefinitely longer than Jane, there could be persons who would be indefinitely worse off than Jane. I call such extremely badly off persons Priority Monsters. xii The possibility of Priority Monsters raises new and important challenges in the ethics of distribution, an area of ethics which addresses how we ought to distribute benefits and burdens across separate persons. The principal challenge I focus on is how to avoid the conclusion that, if such Priority Monsters existed, we would be morally required to benefit them, no matter how little we provide them, at the expense of doing much more good for others, like Jane, who are themselves significantly badly off. Most of us find this conclusion very hard to accept – surely if it were between sparing Jane of many years of misery and sparing a Priority Monster of a mild headache, we should do the former. Utilitarian principles of distribution say that we ought to maximize the overall sum of benefits.
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