Edgeworth's exact and naturally weighted evolutionary utilitarianism and the happiness of Mr. Pongo

Alberto Baccini

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: This article challenges the conventional reading of Francis Ysidro Edgeworth by reconstructing his intellectual project of unifying the moral sciences through mathematics. The contribution he made in the first phase of his writing, culminating in \textit{Mathematical Psychics}, aimed to reconfigure utilitarianism as an exact science, grounding it in psychophysics and evolutionary biology. In order to solve the utilitarian problem of maximizing pleasure for a given set of sentient beings, he modeled individuals as ``quasi-Fechnerian'' functions, which incorporated their capacity for pleasure as determined by their place in the evolutionary order. The problem of maximization is solved by distributing means according to the individuals' capacity for pleasure. His radical anti-egalitarian conclusions did not stem from an abstract principle of justice, but from the necessity to maximize welfare among naturally unequal beings. This logic was applied not only to sentients of different evolutionary orders, such as Mr. Pongo, a famous gorilla, and humans, but also to human races, sexes, and classes. The system, in essence, uses the apparent neutrality of science to naturalize and justify pre-existing social hierarchies. This analysis reveals that the subsequent surgical removal of his utilitarianism by economists, starting with Schumpeter, while making his tools palatable, eviscerates his overarching philosophical system.

Date: 2025-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-hap, nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.20854 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2510.20854

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().