The greatest unhappiness of the least number

Walter Bossert and Kotaro Suzumura

Social Choice and Welfare, 2017, vol. 49, issue 3, No 10, 637-655

Abstract: Abstract We propose an alternative articulation of the Benthamite greatest-happiness-of-the-greatest-number principle. With ordinally measurable and interpersonally non-comparable utilities, the rule chooses those feasible alternatives that maximize the number of individuals who end up with their greatest element. This rule is tantamount to the plurality rule. Furthermore, in the spirit of Rawls’s maximin principle, we propose the greatest-unhappiness-of-the-least-number principle. In analogy to the greatest-happiness principle, the least-unhappiness principle is formally equivalent to the anti-plurality rule. Our main result is a characterization of the least-unhappiness principle.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1007/s00355-017-1066-4

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