The Theory
Prioritarianism Explained
It is a view within ethics and political philosophy that holds that the goodness of an outcome is a function of overall well-being across all individuals with extra weight given to worse-off individuals. It is a noteworthy moral view that ranks outcomes according to the sum of a strictly increasing and strictly concave transformation of well-being numbers. It is a theory of the overall good that captures the common intuition of “priority to the worse off”. According to Holtug, Prioritarianism expresses giving ‘priority to the worse off in the distribution of advantages’ (Holtug N . Prioritarianism. Oxford research Encyclopaedia of politics. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2017.Google Scholar). Therefore it can be said that Prioritarianism is a view of assemblage that is supposed to accommodate the widespread perception of the importance of distribution to those who are in the worst position within a group, community, or society. Prioritarianism should not be confused with utilitarianism because the two are completely different. Prioritarianism is about the distribution rules, which could be potentially shared across diverse approaches. This is distinct from utilitarianism, which asserts that any act or intervention should achieve ‘the greatest good for the greatest number of people’ (Mill JS , In Crisp R , eds. Utilitarianism. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1998.Google Scholar), whereas prioritarianism differs in that it does not weigh the well-being of all individuals equally, but instead prioritizes those individuals that are worse-off.
Prioritarianism is welfarist in nature. It is perceived as such because of the main underpinning principle which is that the well-being of those in a group, community, or society who are "worse off" should be given priority over the others. Those whose well-being are in the greatest need should receive any available benefits over the others within the same group, community, or society. According to Prioritarianism, a benefit is more morally valuable or choiceworthy the worse off the recipient of this benefit is. In essence, what matters is how badly off someone is in comparison to the other members in the same group, community, or society from which the person comes. Parfit (1991) provided an example (taken from Nagel) (Nagel T . Mortal questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979: 123–4.Google Scholar) to illustrate how it works and why it is more coherent than alternatives: a father has two children, one of whom has a disability. If the father moves to the city, the child with the disability will benefit from specialist care. However, if he moves to a suburb instead, the child who is not disabled will flourish, and benefit more than the child with a disability. In deciding to move to the city, the father is prioritising the needs of the child with a disability (the child who would benefit more from the move) over the other child’s (the child who is in a better position) benefits.
