Utilitarianism without individual utilities

We characterize anonymous utilitarianism in a multi-profile and purely ordinal framework, i.e. without assuming that utilities have been measured beforehand

Aggregating sets of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities

We analyze the aggregation problem without the assumption that individuals and society have fully determined and observable preferences. More precisely, we endow individuals ans society with sets of possible von Neumann-Morgenstern utility functions over lotteries. We generalize the classical neutrality assumption to this setting and characterize the class of neutral social welfare function. This class turns out to be considerably broader for indeterminate than for determinate utilities, where it basically reduces to utilitarianism. In particular, aggregation rules may differ by the relationship between individual and social indeterminacy. We characterize several subclasses of neutral aggregation rules and show that utilitarian rules are those that yield the least indeterminate social utilities, although they still fail to systematically yield a determinate social utility.Aggregation; vNM utility; indeterminacy; neutrality; utilitarianism

Extended paretian rules and relative utilitarianism

This paper introduces the 'Extended Pareto' axiom on Social welfare functions and gives a characterization of the axiom when it is assumed that the Social Welfare Functions that satisfy it in a framework of preferences over lotteries also satisfy the restrictions (on the domain and range of preferences) implied by the von-Neumann-Morgenstern axioms. With the addition of two other axioms: Anonymity and Weak IIA* it is shown that there is a unique Social Welfare Function called Relative Utilitarianism that consists of normalizing individual utilities between zero and one and then adding them

Utilitarian Collective Choice and Voting

In his seminal Social Choice and Individual Values, Kenneth Arrow stated that his theory applies to voting. Many voting theorists have been convinced that, on account of Arrow’s theorem, all voting methods must be seriously flawed. Arrow’s theory is strictly ordinal, the cardinal aggregation of preferences being explicitly rejected. In this paper I point out that all voting methods are cardinal and therefore outside the reach of Arrow’s result. Parallel to Arrow’s ordinal approach, there evolved a consistent cardinal theory of collective choice. This theory, most prominently associated with the work of Harsanyi, continued the older utilitarian tradition in a more formal style. The purpose of this paper is to show that various derivations of utilitarian SWFs can also be used to derive utilitarian voting (UV). By this I mean a voting rule that allows the voter to score each alternative in accordance with a given scale. UV-k indicates a scale with k distinct values. The general theory leaves k to be determined on pragmatic grounds. A (1,0) scale gives approval voting. I prefer the scale (1,0,-1) and refer to the resulting voting rule as evaluative voting. A conclusion of the paper is that the defects of conventional voting methods result not from Arrow’s theorem, but rather from restrictions imposed on voters’ expression of their preferences. The analysis is extended to strategic voting, utilizing a novel set of assumptions regarding voter behavior

The Social Value of Mortality Risk Reduction: VSL vs. The Social Welfare Function Approach

We examine how different welfarist frameworks evaluate the social value of mortality risk reduction. These frameworks include classical, distributively unweighted cost–benefit analysis—i.e., the “value per statistical life” (VSL) approach—and various social welfare functions (SWFs). The SWFs are either utilitarian or prioritarian, applied to policy choice under risk in either an “ex post” or “ex ante” manner. We examine the conditions on individual utility and on the SWF under which these frameworks display sensitivity to wealth and to baseline risk. Moreover, we discuss whether these frameworks satisfy related properties that have received some attention in the literature, namely equal value of risk reduction, preference for risk equity, and catastrophe aversion. We show that the particular manner in which VSL ranks risk-reduction measures is not necessarily shared by other welfarist frameworks

Taking Risks Behind the Veil of Ignorance

A natural view in distributive ethics is that everyone's interests matter, but the interests of the relatively worse off matter more than the interests of the relatively better off. I provide a new argument for this view. The argument takes as its starting point the proposal, due to Harsanyi and Rawls, that facts about distributive ethics are discerned from individual preferences in the "original position." I draw on recent work in decision theory, along with an intuitive principle about risk-taking, to derive the view

INTERPERSONAL COMPARISONS OF WELL-BEING

This paper, which is to be published as a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, provides an introduction to social-choice theory with interpersonal comparisons of well-being. We argue that the most promising route of escape from the negative conclusion of Arrow’s theorem is to use a richer informational environment than ordinal measurability and the absence of interpersonal comparability of well-being. We discuss welfarist social evaluation (which requires that the levels of individual well-being in two alternatives are the only determinants of their social ranking) and present characterizations of some important social-evaluation orderings. Journal of Economic LiteratureArrow’s theorem ; social choice with interpersonal utility comparisons ; welfarism

Inequality and Uncertainty: Theory and Legal Applications

Welfarism is the principle that social policy should be based solely on individual well-being, with no reference to \u27fairness or rights. The propriety of this approach has recently been the subject of extensive debate within legal scholarship. Rather than contributing (directly) to this debate, we identify and analyze a problem within welfarism that has received far too little attentioncall this the ex ante/ex post problem. The problem arises from the combination of uncertainty-an inevitable feature of real policy choice-and a social preference for equality. If the policymaker is not a utilitarian, but rather has a social welfare function that is equity regarding to some degree, then she faces a critical choice. Should she care about the equalization of expected well-being (the ex ante approach), or should she care about the expected equalization of actual well-being (the ex post approach)? Should she focus on the equality of prospects or the prospects for equality? In this Article, we bring the ex ante/ex post problem to the attention of legal academics, provide novel insight into when and why the problem arises, and highlight legal applications where the problem figures prominently. We ultimately conclude that welfarism requires an ex post approach. This is a counterintuitive conclusion, because the ex post approach can conflict with ex ante Pareto superiority. Indeed, this Article demonstrates that the ex post application of every equity-regarding social welfare function-whatever its particular form-must conflict with ex ante Pareto superiority in specific situations. Among other things, then, this Article shows that legal academics who care about equity must abandon either their commitment to welfarism or their commitment to ex ante Pareto superiorit

Population Principles with Number-Dependent Critical Levels

This paper introduces and characterizes the number-sensitive critical-level generalized utilitarian family of population principles which is a generalization of the critical-level generalized-utilitarian family. Number-sensitive critical-level utilitarian principles rank alternatives by using a value function that is equal to total utility minus a sum of critical levels that may depend on population size but not on individual utilities, and number-sensitive critical-level generalized-utilitarian principles use transformed utilities and critical levels. Ethical properties of the principles are investigated and the new family is compared to number-dampened generalized utilitarianism whose value functions are equal to transformed representative utility (average utility in the utilitarian case) multiplied by a function of population size.

Inequality and Uncertainty: Theory and Legal Applications

Welfarism is the principle that social policy should be based solely on individual well-being, with no reference to \u27fairness or rights. The propriety of this approach has recently been the subject of extensive debate within legal scholarship. Rather than contributing (directly) to this debate, we identify and analyze a problem within welfarism that has received far too little attentioncall this the ex ante/ex post problem. The problem arises from the combination of uncertainty-an inevitable feature of real policy choice-and a social preference for equality. If the policymaker is not a utilitarian, but rather has a social welfare function that is equity regarding to some degree, then she faces a critical choice. Should she care about the equalization of expected well-being (the ex ante approach), or should she care about the expected equalization of actual well-being (the ex post approach)? Should she focus on the equality of prospects or the prospects for equality? In this Article, we bring the ex ante/ex post problem to the attention of legal academics, provide novel insight into when and why the problem arises, and highlight legal applications where the problem figures prominently. We ultimately conclude that welfarism requires an ex post approach. This is a counterintuitive conclusion, because the ex post approach can conflict with ex ante Pareto superiority. Indeed, this Article demonstrates that the ex post application of every equity-regarding social welfare function-whatever its particular form-must conflict with ex ante Pareto superiority in specific situations. Among other things, then, this Article shows that legal academics who care about equity must abandon either their commitment to welfarism or their commitment to ex ante Pareto superiorit