Thresholds, critical levels, and generalized sufficientarian principles

Walter Bossert, Susumu Cato () and Kohei Kamaga
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Susumu Cato: University of Tokyo

Economic Theory, 2023, vol. 75, issue 4, No 6, 1099-1139

Abstract: Abstract This paper provides an axiomatic analysis of sufficientarian social evaluation. Sufficientarianism has emerged as an increasingly important notion of distributive justice. We propose a class of principles that we label generalized critical-level sufficientarian orderings. The distinguishing feature of our new class is that its members exhibit constant critical levels of well-being that are allowed to differ from the threshold of sufficiency. Our basic axiom assigns priority to those below the threshold, a property that is shared by numerous other sufficientarian approaches. When combined with the well-known strong Pareto principle and the assumption that there be a constant critical level, the axiom implies that the critical level cannot be below the threshold. The main results of the paper are characterizations of our new class and an important subclass. As a final observation, we identify the generalized critical-level sufficientarian orderings that permit us to avoid the repugnant conclusion and the sadistic conclusion, which are known as two fundamental challenges in population ethics.

Keywords: Sufficientarianism; Critical level; Threshold; Strong Pareto; Population ethics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00199-022-01439-z

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