PRIORITY OR SUFFICIENCY …OR BOTH?

Abstract

Prioritarianism is the view that we ought to give priority to benefiting those who are worse off. Sufficientism, on the other hand, is the view that we ought to give priority to benefiting those who are not sufficiently well off. This paper concerns the relative merits of these two views; in particular, it examines an argument advanced by Roger Crisp to the effect that sufficientism is the superior of the two. My aim is to show that Crisp's argument is unsound. While I concede his objections against the particular prioritarian views that he considers, I propose a different version of prioritarianism that is invulnerable to those objections.