In his book Well-Being and Fair Distribution, Matthew Adler advances a sustained and comprehensive argument for a certain variety of prioritarianism. This essay provides a critical overview of the book. The main criticisms made are the following. First, the ‘intersection’ approach adopted by Adler, in order to allow incommensurability in well-being, may have problematic consequences. Second, that Adler’s preferred form of prioritarianism must be restricted to non-negative utilities may be a more serious limitation than he appreciates; and there may be preferable forms which avoid this restriction. Third, Adler’s case against the Ex Ante Pigou Dalton principle might be bolstered by re-evaluating the force of ex ante claims.

中文翻译：

---

阿德勒对优先主义的辩护

在他的《幸福与公平分配》一书中，马修·阿德勒为某种优先主义提出了一个持续而全面的论点。这篇文章对本书进行了批判性的概述。提出的主要批评如下。首先，阿德勒采用的“交叉”方法，为了允许幸福的不可通约性，可能会产生有问题的后果。其次，阿德勒偏好的优先主义形式必须限于非负效用，这可能是一个比他所理解的更严重的限制；并且可能存在避免这种限制的优选形式。第三，重新评估事前索赔的效力可能会支持阿德勒反对事前庇古道尔顿原则的案例。