Hierarchy and the Value of Outcomes
Acceptable versions of distributive principles will take status into account, so that an animal at a given level of well-being will, by virtue of its lower status, have a correspondingly weaker distributive claim than would a person at the same level of well-being. This chapter sketches some promising ways of modifying the various distributive principles, making them sensitive to differences in status. The details remain uncertain, however, as the author illustrates by pointing out some problems for the modified version of the priority view. Turning to the question of whether the very value of well-being itself (that is, the contribution it makes to the overall goodness of an outcome) should also depend on status, the author answers in the affirmative. Surprisingly, an appeal to the principle of equal consideration of interests cannot be used to reject this view, on pain of begging the question.