The Utilitarian Relevance of the Aggregation Theorem

Philippe Mongin and Marc Fleurbaey

No 1115, HEC Research Papers Series from HEC Paris

Abstract: Harsanyi invested his Aggregation Theorem and Impartial Observer Theorem with utilitarian sense, but Sen described them as "representation theorems" with little ethical import. This critical view has never been subjected to full analytical scrutinity. The formal argument we provide here supports the utilitarian relevance of the Aggregation Theorem. Following a hint made by Sen himself, we posit an exogeneous utilitarian ordering that evaluates riskless options by the sum of individual utilities and we show that any social observer who obeys the conditions of the Aggregation Theorem evaluates social states in terms of a weighted variant of this utilitarian sum.

Keywords: Utilitarianism; Aggregation Theorem; Impartial Observer Theorem; Cardinal utility; VNM utility; Harsanyi; Sen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2015-09-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe, nep-mic and nep-upt
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Related works:
Journal Article: The Utilitarian Relevance of the Aggregation Theorem (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebg:heccah:1115

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