Abstract
Abstract If we can save the lives of only one of multiple groups of people, we might be inclined simply to save whichever group is largest. We may worry, though, that automatically saving the largest group fails to take each saveable individual sufficiently into account, offering some of these individuals no chance at all of being rescued. Still wanting to give larger groups higher chances of survival, we may then say that we ought to employ a proportionally weighted lottery to determine which group to save. In this paper, I argue that this would be a mistake. Given the most plausible way of specifying it, the weighted-lottery view itself fails to treat each saveable individual with equal moral respect.
Highlights
If we can save the lives of only one of multiple groups of people, we might be inclined to save whichever group is largest
Equal Chance seems guilty of the very failing we suggested Greatest Number may be guilty of
If we are deciding between saving a solitary individual and saving a group of three, Greatest Number may fail to respect the individual moral significance of a second person added to the first group
Summary
If we can save the lives of only one of multiple groups of people, we might be inclined to save whichever group is largest. By endorsing aggregation of this kind, Greatest Number fails to respect the equal individual moral significance of each saveable person. Both Greatest Number and Equal Chance fail to respect every saveable person’s individual moral significance.
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