Doing the best one can: A new justification for the use of lotteries

Ittay Nissan-Rozen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

In some cases in which rational and moral agents experience moral uncertainty, they are unable to assign exact degrees of moral value-in a non-arbitrary way-to some of the different acts available to them, and so are unable to choose with certainty the best act. This article presents a new justification for the use of lotteries in this kind of situation. It is argued that sometimes the only rational thing for a morally motivated agent to do here is to use a lottery.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)45-72
Number of pages28
JournalErasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics
Volume5
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2012

Keywords

  • Indivisible goods
  • Lotteries
  • Moral uncertainty

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