My first thought on reading the “Two villages” thought experiment was that the village that was easier to help would be poorer, because of the decreasing marginal value of money. If this was so, you’d want to give all your money to the poorer one if your goal was to reduce “the influence of morally arbitrary factors on people’s lives”.
On the other hand that gets reversed if the poorer village is the one that’s harder to help. In that case fairness arguments would still seem to favour putting all your money in one village, just the opposite one to what consequentialists would favour. (So that this problem can’t be completely separated from the Ultrapoverty one).
My first thought on reading the “Two villages” thought experiment was that the village that was easier to help would be poorer, because of the decreasing marginal value of money. If this was so, you’d want to give all your money to the poorer one if your goal was to reduce “the influence of morally arbitrary factors on people’s lives”.
On the other hand that gets reversed if the poorer village is the one that’s harder to help. In that case fairness arguments would still seem to favour putting all your money in one village, just the opposite one to what consequentialists would favour. (So that this problem can’t be completely separated from the Ultrapoverty one).