From moral welfarism to technical non-welfarism : A step back to Bentham’s felicific calculus of its members

Abstract

A focus on the information used in Bentham’s felicific calculus sheds new light on the contemporary debate in normative economics opposing non-welfarism to welfarism. As a utilitarian, Bentham is de facto welfarist on a moral sense. Unexpectedly, this study shows Bentham resorts to non-welfarist information in his calculus. Thus, technical non-welfarism is coherent with moral welfarism, and even, the former proves necessary not to betray utilitarian principles. To sustain this claim, we challenge a view opposing a “cardinal” to an “ordinal” calculus: these two calculi constitute different stages of a unique calculus; because of operational constraints, Bentham is bound to rely on proxies, hence on non-utility information.Bentham, individual utility, utility calculus, utilitarianism, welfarism, non-welfarism, social welfare, technical welfarism, moral welfarism.