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  1. (1 other version)Original position arguments: an axiomatic characterization.Thijs De Coninck & Frederik Van De Putte - forthcoming - Economics and Philosophy:1-32.
    We study original position arguments in the context of social choice under ignorance. First, we present a general formal framework for such arguments. Next, we provide an axiomatic characterization of social choice rules that can be supported by original position arguments. We illustrate this characterization in terms of various well-known social choice rules, some of which do and some of which do not satisfy the axioms in question. Depending on the perspective one takes, our results can be used to argue (...)
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  • Roles for scientists in policymaking.Joe Roussos - forthcoming - In W. J. Gonzalez (ed.), Climate change and studies of the future.
    What is the proper role for scientists in policymaking? This paper explores various roles that scientists can play, with an eye to questions that these roles raise about value-neutrality and technocracy. Where much philosophical literature is concerned with the conduct of research or the transmission of research results to policymakers, I am interested in various non-research roles that scientists take on in policymaking. These include raising the alarm on issues, framing and conceptualising problems, formulating potential policies, assessing policy options for (...)
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  • When utilitarianism dominates justice as fairness: an economic defence of utilitarianism from the original position.Hun Chung - 2023 - Economics and Philosophy 39 (2):308-333.
    The original position together with the veil of ignorance have served as one of the main methodological devices to justify principles of distributive justice. Most approaches to this topic have primarily focused on the single person decision-theoretic aspect of the original position. This paper, in contrast, will directly model the basic structure and the economic agents therein to project the economic consequences and social outcomes generated either by utilitarianism or Rawls’s two principles of justice. It will be shown that when (...)
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  • (1 other version)Original position arguments and social choice under ignorance.Thijs De Coninck & Frederik Van De Putte - 2022 - Theory and Decision 94 (2):275-298.
    John Rawls famously argued that the Difference Principle would be chosen by any rational agent in the original position. Derek Parfit and Philippe Van Parijs have claimed, contra Rawls, that it is not the Difference Principle which is implied by Rawls’ original position argument, but rather the more refined Lexical Difference Principle. In this paper, we study both principles in the context of social choice under ignorance. First, we present a general format for evaluating original position arguments in this context. (...)
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  • Calibration dilemmas in the ethics of distribution.Jacob M. Nebel & H. Orri Stefánsson - 2023 - Economics and Philosophy 39 (1):67-98.
    This paper presents a new kind of problem in the ethics of distribution. The problem takes the form of several “calibration dilemmas,” in which intuitively reasonable aversion to small-stakes inequalities requires leading theories of distribution to recommend intuitively unreasonable aversion to large-stakes inequalities. We first lay out a series of such dilemmas for prioritarian theories. We then consider a widely endorsed family of egalitarian views and show that they are subject to even more forceful calibration dilemmas than prioritarian theories. Finally, (...)
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  • Rank-Weighted Utilitarianism and the Veil of Ignorance.Jacob M. Nebel - 2020 - Ethics 131 (1):87-106.
    Lara Buchak argues for a version of rank-weighted utilitarianism that assigns greater weight to the interests of the worse off. She argues that our distributive principles should be derived from the preferences of rational individuals behind a veil of ignorance, who ought to be risk averse. I argue that Buchak’s appeal to the veil of ignorance leads to a particular way of extending rank-weighted utilitarianism to the evaluation of uncertain prospects. This method recommends choices that violate the unanimous preferences of (...)
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  • Taking Risks on Behalf of Another.Johanna Thoma - 2023 - Philosophy Compass 18 (3):e12898.
    A growing number of decision theorists have, in recent years, defended the view that rationality is permissive under risk: Different rational agents may be more or less risk-averse or risk-inclined. This can result in them making different choices under risk even if they value outcomes in exactly the same way. One pressing question that arises once we grant such permissiveness is what attitude to risk we should implement when choosing on behalf of other people. Are we permitted to implement any (...)
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  • Prospect Utilitarianism and the Original Position.hun CHung - 2023 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (4):670-704.
    Suppose we assume that the parties in the original position took Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory as constituting their general knowledge of human psychology that survives through the veil of ignorance. How would this change the choice situation of the original position? In this paper, I present what I call ‘prospect utilitarianism’. Prospect utilitarianism combines the utilitarian social welfare function with individual utility functions characterized by Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory. I will argue that, once prospect utilitarianism is on the (...)
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  • Uncertainty, equality, fraternity.Rush T. Stewart - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):9603-9619.
    Epistemic states of uncertainty play important roles in ethical and political theorizing. Theories that appeal to a “veil of ignorance,” for example, analyze fairness or impartiality in terms of certain states of ignorance. It is important, then, to scrutinize proposed conceptions of ignorance and explore promising alternatives in such contexts. Here, I study Lerner’s probabilistic egalitarian theorem in the setting of imprecise probabilities. Lerner’s theorem assumes that a social planner tasked with distributing income to individuals in a population is “completely (...)
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