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How the Sufficiency Minimum Becomes a Social Maximum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2010

KARL WIDERQUIST
KARL WIDERQUIST*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in [email protected]
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Abstract

This article argues that, under likely empirical conditions, sufficientarianism leads not to an easily achievable duty to maintain a social minimum but to the onerous duty of maintaining a social maximum at the sufficiency level. This happens because sufficientarians ask us to give no weight at all to small benefits for people above the sufficiency level if the alternative is to relieve the suffering of people below it. If we apply this judgment in a world where there are rare diseases and hard-to-prevent accidents that cause people to fall below the sufficiency threshold, all of our discretionary spending will have to be devoted to bringing harder and harder cases up to sufficiency. Nothing will be left for anyone to consume above the sufficiency level.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 474 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Casal, Paula, ‘Why Sufficiency Is Not Enough’, Ethics 117 (2007), pp. 296–326, esp. pp. 299–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Benbaji, Yitzhak, ‘The Doctrine of Sufficiency: A Defense’, Utilitas 17 (2005), pp. 310–32, esp. p. 311CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Frankfurt, Harry, ‘Equality as a Moral Ideal’, Ethics 98 (1987), pp. 21–43, esp. p. 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benbaji, ‘A Defense’, p. 310; Benbaji, Yitzhak, ‘Sufficiency or Priority?’, European Journal of Philosophy 14 (2006), pp. 327–48, esp. pp. 327–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crisp, Roger, ‘Equality, Priority, and Compassion’, Ethics 113 (2003), pp. 745–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Crisp, ‘Equality’, pp. 752–4.

5 Benbaji, ‘Sufficiency’, pp. 327–8.

6 Crisp, ‘Equality’; Benbaji, ‘Sufficiency’.

7 Stark, Andrew, ‘Benefit versus Numbers versus Helping the Worst-off: An Alternative to the Prevalent Approach to the Just Distribution of Resources’, Utilitas 20 (2008), pp. 356–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, calls ‘the prevalent approach’ the joint concern with size of benefit, worse-offedness, and numbers.

8 Arneson, Richard J., ‘Distributive Justice and Basic Capability Equality: “Good Enough” Is Not Good Enough’, Capabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems, ed. Kaufman, A. (London, 2005)Google Scholar.

9 Arneson, ‘Distributive Justice’, p. 13.

10 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA, 1999)Google Scholar.

11 Both Casal, ‘Why Sufficiency’, and Benbaji, ‘A Defense’, have considered the possibility of multiple thresholds.

12 For example, Crisp, ‘Equality’, p. 755.

13 Crisp, ‘Equality’, p. 753.

14 Benbaji, ‘Sufficiency’, pp. 327–8.