The Relevance of Utilitarianism

Marc Fleurbaey and Philippe Monginy
Additional contact information
Philippe Monginy: CNRS & HEC Paris

No 1369, Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program.

Abstract: Harsanyi invested his Aggregation Theorem and Impartial Observer Theorem with deep utilitarian sense, but Sen redescribed them as "representation theorems" with little ethical import. This negative view has gained wide acquiescence in economics. Against it, we support the utilitarian interpretation by a novel argument relative to the Aggregation Theorem. We suppose that a utilitarian observer evaluates non-risky alternatives by the sum of individual utilities and investigate his von Neumann-Morgenstern (VNM) preference on risky alternatives. Adding some technical assumptions to Harsanyi's, we conclude that (i) this observer would use the utility sum as a VNM utility function, and crucially, (ii) any social observer would evaluate both risky and non-risky alternatives in terms of a weighted utility sum. Hence, pace Sen, VNM theory can give some interesting support to utilitarianism. The argument is conveyed by means of three theorems that encapsulate Harsanyi's original one as a particular step.

Keywords: Utilitarianism; Aggregation Theorem; Impartial Observer Theo- rem; cardinal utility; VNM utility; Harsanyi; Sen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://detc.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/ ... Fleurbaey_Mongin.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://detc.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp027_2011_Fleurbaey_Mongin.pdf [302 Found]--> https://detc.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp027_2011_Fleurbaey_Mongin.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://economics.princeton.edu/the-william-s-dietrich-ii-economic-theory-center/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp027_2011_Fleurbaey_Mongin.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The relevance of utilirianism (2011)
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:pri:metric:wp027_2011_fleurbaey_mongin.pdf

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bobray Bordelon ().