Utilitarianism Is Implied by Social and Individual Dominance

Arbeitspapier

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 16561

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
• Subject: social risk ; variable population ; utilitarianism

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gustafsson, Johan E. ; Spears, Dean ; Zuber, Stéphane
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/282688
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET