Misfortune Favors the Moderate: A Solution to Calibration Dilemmas in Distributive Ethics

Moderate views in distributive ethics, including leading prioritarian and egalitarian views, are those sensitive to both aggregate well-being and inequality to an intermediate degree. Calibration theorems make trouble for leading moderate views by demonstrating that reasonable degrees of aversion to low-stakes inequalities commit these views to extreme degrees of inequality aversion when more well-being is at stake. So, these views face a dilemma: either abandon reasonable low-stakes inequality aversion or accept unreasonable high-stakes inequality aversion. Here, I introduce a new moderate view, Misfortune Aversion, that avoids problematic calibration dilemmas, consistently combining the moderate’s concerns for equality and aggregate well-being.