Matthew D. Adler is the Richard A. Horvitz Professor of Law and Professor of Economics, Philosophy and Public Policy at Duke University. His scholarship is interdisciplinary, drawing from welfare economics and normative ethics, and currently focuses on the “social welfare function” (SWF) framework as a general methodology for evaluating governmental policy choices. Adler is the author of numerous articles and two books: New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis (Harvard, 2006; co-authored with Eric Posner); and Well-Being and Fair Distribution: Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis (Oxford, 2012). He is the editor (with Marc Fleurbaey) of the recently published Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy (2016).
Dates of Visit: 31 May - 17 June 2016
Project Title: Fairness, Claims, and Prioritarianism
Project Description: The literature on “luck egalitarianism” seeks to refine criteria of distributive justice so as to take account of differential individual responsibility and/or desert. In this research project, I engage luck egalitarianism through the concept of individual “claims.” Each individual has a standing claim to be made better off; the strength of her claim depends upon what she stands to gain, her welfare level, and her desert. The upshot is a desert-adjusted prioritarian account of distributive justice. Simple prioritarianism gives greater ethical weight to welfare changes affecting those who are worse off; desert-adjusted prioritarianism, to those who are worse off or more deserving.