Enough is too much: the excessiveness objection to sufficientarianism

The standard version of sufficientarianism maintains that providing people with enough, or as close to enough as is possible, is lexically prior to other distributive goals. This article argues that this is excessive – more than distributive justice allows – in four distinct ways. These concern the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEconomics and philosophy Vol. 38; no. 2; pp. 275 - 299
Main Author Knight, Carl
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2022
Subjects
Beneficiaries
Distributive justice
Economics
Morality
Principles
sufficiency
lexical priority
prioritarianism
sufficientarianism
Distributive justice
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Summary:The standard version of sufficientarianism maintains that providing people with enough, or as close to enough as is possible, is lexically prior to other distributive goals. This article argues that this is excessive – more than distributive justice allows – in four distinct ways. These concern the magnitude of advantage, the number of beneficiaries, responsibility and desert, and above-threshold distribution. Sufficientarians can respond by accepting that providing enough unconditionally is more than distributive justice allows, instead balancing sufficiency against other considerations.
ISSN:0266-2671
1474-0028
DOI:10.1017/S0266267121000171