Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population - HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Autre publication scientifique Documents de travail du Centre d'Économie de la Sorbonne Année : 2021

Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population

Résumé

Utilitarianism is the most prominent family of social welfare functions. We present three new axiomatic characterizations of utilitarian (that is, additively separable) social welfare functions in a setting where there is risk over both population size and the welfares of individuals. First, we show that, given uncontroversial basic axioms, Blackorby et al.'s (1998) Expected Critical-Level Generalized Utilitarianism (ECLGU) is equivalent to a new axiom holding that it is better to allocate higher utility-conditional-on-existence to possible people who have a higher probability of existence. The other two novel characterizations extend classic axiomatizations of utilitarianism from settings with either social risk or variable-population, considered alone. By considering both social risk and variable population together, we clarify the fundamental normative considerations underlying utilitarian policy evaluation.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
21017.pdf ( 825.83 Ko ) Télécharger
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
Loading...

Dates et versions

halshs-03287583, version 1 (15-07-2021)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-03287583 , version 1

Citer

Dean Spears, Stéphane Zuber. Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population. 2021. ⟨halshs-03287583⟩
93 Consultations
125 Téléchargements
Dernière date de mise à jour le 05/05/2024
comment ces indicateurs sont-ils produits

Partager

Gmail Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Plus