Here, I refute Egalitarianism and the Priority View. [ *From “Against Equality and Priority,” Utilitas 24 (2012): 483-501. ] 1. Background A common view in moral and political philosophy is: Egalitarianism: The view that equality of welfare (people being equally well off) is
> Virtually everyone thinks A is better than B. (Indeed, prior to my publishing this article, there was probably no one who disagreed with this, and there probably still is no one who disagrees with it for any reason other than that they want to avoid the argument of this article.)
Well, I for one, disagree. And not "to avoid the argument of this article". Historically many others have disagreed. For example people advocating for making do with less, people against consumerism, people in favor of more ecological sustainability throu degrowth, and several other angles as well. I'm actually for all of the above. I don't think "welfare" is well defined, and if it's about "more stuff" I think it's bound by diminishing returns or even negative returns beyond some point.
The world comparison I also found mere abstractions. People advocating for equality advocate for it in this world, and are not concerned with abstract comparisons.
Real advocates for equality also don't advocate for any "perfect" equality (another strawman or slippery slope, as if advocating equality means making everybody 100% equal, as opposed to not having some homeless and others living in $100 million dollar homes).
So the only thing this did, perhaps, is refute some strawman, perfectly abstract and technical (as opposed to real-world-fuzzy and political) arguments about equality, that no actual person actually has.
> I find that many people find egalitarianism (properly explained) non-obvious, and many are opposed to it.
"Properly explained" here is a cop-out, meaning "this abstraction I put forward, and not as what people think of when they use the term and advocate for".
I think there's still a not-totally-dogmatic way a proponent of 1/2 could reject your argument. One can deny the completeness of preferences over worlds by postulating that all worlds with a different number of people are incomparable. This assumption is highly questionable, but someone can hold it for independent reasons: for example, it would also let them avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. This would deny both 4 and 5, and rescue 1 or 2.
I wonder if someone else in the literature has already raised that objection.
> Virtually everyone thinks A is better than B. (Indeed, prior to my publishing this article, there was probably no one who disagreed with this, and there probably still is no one who disagrees with it for any reason other than that they want to avoid the argument of this article.)
Well, I for one, disagree. And not "to avoid the argument of this article". Historically many others have disagreed. For example people advocating for making do with less, people against consumerism, people in favor of more ecological sustainability throu degrowth, and several other angles as well. I'm actually for all of the above. I don't think "welfare" is well defined, and if it's about "more stuff" I think it's bound by diminishing returns or even negative returns beyond some point.
The world comparison I also found mere abstractions. People advocating for equality advocate for it in this world, and are not concerned with abstract comparisons.
Real advocates for equality also don't advocate for any "perfect" equality (another strawman or slippery slope, as if advocating equality means making everybody 100% equal, as opposed to not having some homeless and others living in $100 million dollar homes).
So the only thing this did, perhaps, is refute some strawman, perfectly abstract and technical (as opposed to real-world-fuzzy and political) arguments about equality, that no actual person actually has.
> I find that many people find egalitarianism (properly explained) non-obvious, and many are opposed to it.
"Properly explained" here is a cop-out, meaning "this abstraction I put forward, and not as what people think of when they use the term and advocate for".
I think there's still a not-totally-dogmatic way a proponent of 1/2 could reject your argument. One can deny the completeness of preferences over worlds by postulating that all worlds with a different number of people are incomparable. This assumption is highly questionable, but someone can hold it for independent reasons: for example, it would also let them avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. This would deny both 4 and 5, and rescue 1 or 2.
I wonder if someone else in the literature has already raised that objection.