Prioritarianism is supposed to be a theory of the overall good that captures the common intuition of ‘priority to the worse off’. But it is difficult to give precise content to the prioritarian claim. Over the past few decades, prioritarians have increasingly responded to this ‘content problem’ by formulating prioritarianism not in terms of an alleged primitive notion of quantity of well-being, but instead in terms of von Neumann–Morgenstern utility. The resulting two forms of prioritarianism (respectively, ‘Primitivist’ and ‘Technical’ prioritarianism) are not mere variants on a theme, but are entirely distinct theories, amenable to different motivating arguments and open to different objections. This article argues that the basic intuition of ‘priority to the worse off’ provides no support for Technical Prioritarianism: qua attempt to capture that intuition, the turn to von Neumann–Morgenstern utility is a retrograde step.

According to Jeremy Bentham's account of happiness, pleasure is understood as homogeneous, without qualitative differences between pleasures, and the relation between pleasure and its objects is understood as morally and psychologically arbitrary. John Stuart Mill's ‘mental crisis’ emerged as he realized the psychological impossibility of living according to this view. His recovery was aided by engagement with the poetry of Wordsworth, through which he developed the notion that the cultivation of character and sentiments is an essential element of a good life. I aim to explore Mill's engagement with Wordsworth, and shed light on how Mill felt able to reconcile hedonic utilitarianism with his new view of the ‘inner life’ of the individual.

I argue that debates about virtue are best settled by clearly distinguishing two questions:

1. (a) What sort of character trait is there reason to cultivate?

2. (b) What sort of character trait is there reason (morally) to admire?

1. (1) The instrumentalist view of virtue accepted by many prominent consequentialists should not be accepted as the default view for consequentialists to hold.

2. (2) The main rival view, the appropriate response account, not only avoids the major objection facing the instrumental view, but gives the correct diagnosis of where it goes wrong.

3. (3) Two objections that seem to face the appropriate response account can in fact be convincingly met in ways which leave it looking stronger.

4. (4) The appropriate response account is also to be preferred to a disjunctive view or a mixed view.

John Broome argues that fairness requires that claims are satisfied in proportion to their strength. Broome holds that, when distributing indivisible goods, fairness requires the use of weighted lotteries as a surrogate to satisfy proportionally each candidate's claims. In this article, we present two arguments against Broome's account of fairness. First, we argue that it is almost impossible to calculate the weights of the lotteries in accordance with the requirements of fairness. Second, we argue that Broome rules out those methods whose use might provide some resolution to this problem. From these arguments, we conclude that, contra Broome, fairness does not require the proportional satisfaction of claims.

Drawing on the author's recent book Ethics for a Broken World, this article explores the philosophical implications of the fact that climate change – or something like it – might lead to a broken world where resources are insufficient to meet everyone's basic needs, and where our affluent way of life is no longer an option. It argues that the broken world has an impact, not only on applied ethics, but also on moral theory. It then explores that impact. The article first argues that the broken world creates severe difficulties for both libertarians and contractualists. It then explores the impact of the broken world on utilitarianism – and especially on reflective equilibrium arguments for rule-utilitarianism. The article concludes that, while such arguments may still be viable, the form of rule-utilitarianism that results will be less moderate and less liberal than contemporary rule-utilitarians might hope.