Arbeitspapier
A Fairness Justification of Utilitarianism
Differences in preferences are important to explain variation in individuals’ behavior. There is however no consensus on how to take these differences into account when evaluating policies. While prominent in the economic literature, the standard utilitarian criterion faces two major difficulties. First, it requires cardinal measurability and unit comparability of individuals’ utilities, which cannot be inferred from individuals’ observed behavior. Second, it is normatively controversial as it might support unfair policies. In this paper, we propose an alternative criterion, named opportunity-equivalent utilitarian, that overcomes these difficulties. First, our criterion ranks social alternatives on the basis of individuals’ ordinal preferences, which can be estimated from individuals’ observed behavior. Second, our criterion avoids the conventional critiques to utilitarianism by satisfying the following three fairness axioms: possibility of trade-offs sets a limit to the influence any individual can exert on the social ranking; non discrimination means that no individual is considered to be more deserving than any other; equal-preference transfer requires society to value positively a multicommodity progressive transfer among individuals with the same preferences. We show that, together with efficiency, continuity, and separability, these axioms force the welfare criterion to be the sum of specific indices of well-being that are cardinally measurable, interpersonally comparable, and represent each individual’s preferences.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
-
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 5785
- Classification
-
Wirtschaft
Welfare Economics: General
- Subject
-
utilitarianism
ordinal preferences
fairness
opportunities
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Piacquadio, Paolo Giovanni
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
-
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (where)
-
Munich
- (when)
-
2016
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Piacquadio, Paolo Giovanni
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Time of origin
- 2016
Other Objects (12)
A Normative Justification of Compulsory Education
The function of justification in transnational governance
Towards a Justification the Principle of Coordination
Fairness-based altruism
Fairness and Cheating
The economics of justice as fairness
Efficiency of fairness in voting systems
Fairness spillovers: The case of taxation
The Economics of Justice as Fairness
Fairness spillovers: The case of taxation
Inequality Indices as Tests of Fairness
Pitfalls in the Theory of Fairness
A Normative Justification of Compulsory Education
The function of justification in transnational governance
Towards a Justification the Principle of Coordination
Fairness-based altruism
Fairness and Cheating
The economics of justice as fairness
Efficiency of fairness in voting systems
Fairness spillovers: The case of taxation
The Economics of Justice as Fairness
Fairness spillovers: The case of taxation
Inequality Indices as Tests of Fairness
Pitfalls in the Theory of Fairness
A Normative Justification of Compulsory Education
The function of justification in transnational governance
Towards a Justification the Principle of Coordination
Fairness-based altruism
Fairness and Cheating
The economics of justice as fairness
Efficiency of fairness in voting systems
Fairness spillovers: The case of taxation
The Economics of Justice as Fairness
Fairness spillovers: The case of taxation
Inequality Indices as Tests of Fairness