Equality, efficiency, and the priority of the worse-off

Peter Vallentyne

Economics and Philosophy, 2000, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Egalitarian theories of justice hold that equality should be promoted. Typically, perfect equality will not be achievable, and it will be necessary to determine which of various unequal distributions is the most equal. All plausible conceptions of equality hold that, where perfect equality does not obtain, (1) any benefit (no matter how small) to a worst-off person that leaves him/her still a worst-off person has priority (with respect to equality promotion) over any benefit (no matter how large) to a best-off person, and (2) any benefit to a worse-off person (even if not a worst-off person) has priority over a benefit of the same size to a better off person (even if not a best-off person). Beyond that there is much disagreement.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:16:y:2000:i:01:p:1-19_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics and Philosophy from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().