Identified person “bias” as decreasing marginal value of chances

Abstract

AbstractMany philosophers think that we should use a lottery to decide who gets a good to which two persons have an equal claim but which only one person can get. Some philosophers think that we should save identified persons from harm even at the expense of saving a somewhat greater number of statistical persons from the same harm. I defend a principled way of justifying both judgements, namely, by appealing to the decreasing marginal moral value of survival chances. I identify four desiderata that, I contend, any such justification should satisfy, and explain how my account meets these desiderata, unlike some previous accounts.