Impossibility of interpersonal social identity diversification under binary preferences

Nadeem Naqvi

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Diverse identities, some socially shared, arise from a person’s affiliation with multiple overlapping communities, which are non-disjoint subsets of persons in society. I prove that identification of each individual with binary preferences or their utility function representation, commonplace in economic theory, implies the impossibility of social-identity diversification of persons. Therefore, if the goal is to explain injustices based on social identity distinctions such as racial discrimination, the conceptual reach of economic theory needs extension. I propose a generalization by assigning non-binary preferences to each individual player to achieve endogenous social diversification, to potentially serve as a basis for explaining discrimination.

Keywords: justice; social identity; discrimination; race; gender; non-binariness; maximization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D46 D63 J15 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-09-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hme and nep-hpe
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:41365

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