Weighing Up Weighted Lotteries: Scarcity, Overlap Cases, and Fair Inequalities of Chance
Gerard Vong
Abstract
After providing a novel taxonomy of lottery procedures for fairly distributing scarce goods, I defend a new weighted lottery theory. This taxonomy is necessary because the debate between unweighted and weighted lottery theorists overlooks a range of cases, overlap cases, in which conducting an unweighted lottery is impossible or implausible. Therefore, to account for all such cases, lottery theorists must adopt a weighted lottery. However, while no extant weighted lottery is adequate in overlap cases, my new weighted lottery theory is. I conclude by discussing my theory’s practical implications (e.g., for bioethics and cases involving potentially unsuccessful attempts to benefit).
Topics & Concepts
LotteryExtant taxonTaxonomy (biology)EconomicsPositive economicsScarcityValuation (finance)Mathematical economicsEpistemologyActuarial scienceMicroeconomicsPhilosophyEcologyEvolutionary biologyBiologyFinanceFree Will and AgencyPsychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentPhilosophical Ethics and Theory