The Separateness of Persons and Distributive Principles

It is claimed that, just like utilitarianism, prioritarianism fails to respect the separateness of persons (SOP). On the other hand, the SOP has been used by Rawls, Nagel and others to defend egalitarianism. But what exactly does the separateness of persons’ objection mean? What does it mean that a view does not respect or registers the SOP, and why, consequently, is it embarrassing for a distributive view to fail to do so? My claim in this paper is that the SOP acts neither as a decisive reason against utilitarianism or prioritarianism nor as one for egalitarianism. In fact, I want to say, the SOP is simply irrelevant for adjudicating between equality and its rivals. To facilitate this, the paper goes through a series of plausible interpretations of the SOP objection, and shows that none of them works. On one initial interpretation, the SOP is an objection to weighing gains and losses across lives. But of course, on this interpretation the SOP afflicts also egalitarianism. On a second interpretation I offer, the objection is directed at treating inter-personal transfers on a par with intra-personal ones and both as a prudential question. I show that that need not be the case. Perhaps then, third, the objection is to utilitarians treating intra-personal transfers as a moral question. I provide some intuitive thoughts to show why such a criticism would not be a compelling one. Perhaps then, the trouble is that utilitarians ignore how intra-personal gains compensate for losses whereas this cannot be the case with respect to inter-personal transfers. But this treads on an ambiguity with respect to ‘compensation’, which has both a prudential and moral meaning. Contra to widespread conception, egalitarianism, properly understood does not treat intra-personal transfers as morally significant as such. Some egalitarians, for example, seem to think that happier stages of a life mitigate the unfairness of being less happy than others in other stages of one’s life. I show that this gets things the wrong way. Rather, egalitarianism treats intra-personal transfers as morally significant because they are significant from a prudential point of view. Interestingly then, utilitarianism and egalitarianism both treat intra-personal transfers as morally significant because of being significant from a prudential point of view. The SOP objection does not tell utilitarianism and egalitarianism apart. Finally, I examine the claim that the SOP objection in fact focuses on the level at which gains and losses occur. It is claimed that while in intra-personal cases we care only about the size of the respective transfers, it is the case that in inter-personal transfers egalitarians care also about the level at which they are had. This looks like a better interpretation of the SOP objection. However, like egalitarians, prioritarians also care about the level at which benefits are had, and still they are accused of violating the SOP. So even on that interpretation the SOP does not help us separate egalitarianism from its two rivals. The SOP, I conclude, is simply irrelevant to adjudicating between egalitarianism and its rivals.