Arbeitspapier

Utilitarianism Is Implied by Social and Individual Dominance

The expectation of a sum of utilities is a core criterion for evaluating policies and social welfare under variable population and social risk. Our contribution is to show that a previously unrecognized combination of weak assumptions yields general versions of this criterion, both in fixed-population and in variable-population settings. We show that two dimensions of weak dominance (over risk and individuals) characterize a social welfare function with two dimensions of additive separability. So social expected utility emerges merely from social statewise dominance (given other axioms). Moreover, additive utilitarianism, in the variable- population setting, arises from a new, weak form of individual stochastic dominance with two attractive properties: It only applies to lives certain to exist (so it does not compare life against non-existence), and it avoids prominent egalitarian objections to utilitarianism by only applying if certain correlations are preserved. Our result provides a foundation for evaluating climate change, growth, and depopulation.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 16561

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
Thema
social risk
variable population
utilitarianism

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Gustafsson, Johan E.
Spears, Dean
Zuber, Stéphane
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
(wo)
Bonn
(wann)
2023

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Gustafsson, Johan E.
  • Spears, Dean
  • Zuber, Stéphane
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Entstanden

  • 2023

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