Consequentialist decision theory and utilitarian ethics

Theory and decision, 1988

Journal of Philosophy

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

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.

The Economic Journal, 2018

We provide a microfoundation for a weighted utilitarian social welfare function that re ‡ects common moral intuitions about interpersonal comparisons of utilities. If utility is only ordinal in the usual microeconomic sense, interpersonal comparisons are meaningless. Nonetheless, economics often adopts utilitarian welfare functions, assuming that comparable utility functions can be calibrated using information beyond consumer choice data. We show that consumer choice data alone are su¢ cient. As suggested by Edgeworth (1881), just noticeable di¤erences provide a common unit of measure for interpersonal comparisons of utility di¤erences. We prove that a simple monotonicity axiom implies a weighted utilitarian aggregation of preferences, with weights proportional to individual jnd's. We thank Paul Milgrom, Philippe Mongin, Uzi Segal, and David Schmeidler for comments and discussions. We are particularly grateful to Luigi Balletta, Ludovic Renou, three anonymous referees, and the editor for comments on earlier versions of this paper and for important references. Gilboa gratefully acknowledges support from ISF Grants 204/13, 704/15, the Foerder Foundation, ERC Grant 269754, and Investissements d'Avenir ANR-11-IDEX-0003 / Labex ECODEC No.

Social Science Research Network, 2017

We provide a microfoundation for a weighted utilitarian social welfare function that re ‡ects common moral intuitions about interpersonal comparisons of utilities. If utility is only ordinal, interpersonal comparisons are meaningless. Nonetheless, economics often adopts utilitarian welfare functions, assuming that comparable utility functions can be calibrated using information beyond consumer choice data. We show that consumer choice data alone are su¢cient. As suggested by Edgeworth (1881), just noticeable di¤erences provide a common unit of measure for interpersonal comparisons of utility di¤erences. We prove that a simple monotonicity axiom implies a weighted utilitarian aggregation of preferences, with weights proportional to individual jnd's. We thank Paul Milgrom, Philippe Mongin, Uzi Segal, and David Schmeidler for comments and discussions. We are particularly grateful to Luigi Balletta, Ludovic Renou, and an anonymous referee for comments on earlier versions of this paper and for important references. Gilboa gratefully acknowledges support from ISF Grants 204/13, 704/15, the Foerder Foundation, and ERC Grant 269754.

Social Choice and Welfare, 1995

Ethics can be divided into a theory of prudential values and a theory of morality in a narrower sense. My paper proposes a utilitarian -a rule-utilitariantheory of morality. But it deviates from most of the utilitarian tradition by rejecting the hedonistic and subjectivistic accounts of prudential values favored by many utilitarian writers. While economists tend to define people's utility levels in terms of their actual preferences, ethics must define them in terms of their informed preferences. To prefer A over B does not mean to have a stronger desire for A than for B. Rather, it means to regard one's access to A as being more important than one's access to B. Even though different people often have quite different preferences, their basic desires seem to be much the same. We must choose our moral rules, and our society's moral code as a whole, by their social utility. An important factor in determining their social utility are their expectation effects. Unlike the rule -utilitarian more code, the act -utilitarian moral code would be unable to give proper weight to these expectation effects. It would also unduly restrict our individual freedom. Finally, I shall argue against Kant that morality is primarily a servant of many other human values rather than itself the highest value of human life.

Commonsense ConsequentialismWherein Morality Meets Rationality, 2011

IN THIS PAPER, I make a presumptive case for moral rationalism: the view that agents can be morally required to do only what they have decisive reason to do, all things considered. 1 And I argue that this view leads us to reject all traditional versions of act-consequentialism. I begin by explaining how moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism. §1 The too-demanding objection: How moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism Utilitarianism holds that an act is morally permissible if and only if it maximizes aggregate utility. 2 This view is too demanding. It implies that agents are morally required to sacrifice their projects, interests, and special relationships whenever doing so would produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility than not doing so would. Thus, according to utilitarianism, I'm morally required to sacrifice my life, to neglect my relationship with my daughter, and to abandon my project of completing this paper if I could thereby produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility. To demand that I make such sacrifices for the sake of such miniscule gains in aggregate utility is to demand more from me than can be rightfully or reasonably demanded of me. To say that a given theory is too demanding is not merely, or even necessarily, to say that it demands quite a lot from agents in certain circumstances. After all, almost all moral theories demand quite a lot from agents in at least some circumstances. 3 What's more, a theory can be too demanding in part because some of its demands, though quite small, are 1 I assume, contrary to COPP 1997, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent has decisive reason to do, all things considered-in other words, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent just plain ought to do. See MCLEOD 2001 for a reply to Copp. 2 The aggregate utility produced by an act is the sum of all the utility it produces minus the sum of all the disutility it produces, where utility is a measure of whatever it is that enhances a subject's welfare, and disutility is a measure of whatever it is that diminishes a subject's welfare. An act maximizes aggregate utility just when there is no available alternative act that would produce more aggregate utility than it would. And note that I use 'utilitarianism' as shorthand for 'maximizing act-utilitarianism'. 3 Paul Hurley (2006, p. 681) makes this point as well.

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2010

Morality for the purposes of this paper consists of sets of rules or principles intended for the general regulation of conduct for all. Intuitionist accounts of morality are rejected as making reasoned analysis of morals impossible. In many interactions, there is partial conflict and partial cooperation. From the general social point of view, the rational thing to propose is that we steer clear of conflict and promote cooperation. This is what it is rational to propose to reinforce, and to assist in reinforcing in society; it is not necessarily what it is individually rational to do. Even so, given the general situation, the rationality of its reinforcement will typically support the rationality of individual action as well. Game theory makes it possible to clarify these interactions, and these proposals for social solutions.

Journal of Mathematical Economics, 87 (2020) 77-113, 2020

We give two social aggregation theorems under conditions of risk, one for constant population cases, the other an extension to variable populations. Intra and interpersonal welfare comparisons are encoded in a single ‘individual preorder’. The theorems give axioms that uniquely determine a social preorder in terms of this individual preorder. The social preorders described by these theorems have features that may be considered characteristic of Harsanyi-style utilitarianism, such as indifference to ex ante and ex post equality. However, the theorems are also consistent with the rejection of all of the expected utility axioms, completeness, continuity, and independence, at both the individual and social levels. In that sense, expected utility is inessential to Harsanyi-style utilitarianism. In fact, the variable population theorem imposes only a mild constraint on the individual preorder, while the constant population theorem imposes no constraint at all. We then derive further results under the assumption of our basic axioms. First, the individual preorder satisfies the main expected utility axiom of strong independence if and only if the social preorder has a vector-valued expected total utility representation, covering Harsanyi’s utilitarian theorem as a special case. Second, stronger utilitarian-friendly assumptions, like Pareto or strong separability, are essentially equivalent to strong independence. Third, if the individual preorder satisfies a ‘local expected utility’ condition popular in non-expected utility theory, then the social preorder has a ‘local expected total utility’ representation. Fourth, a wide range of non-expected utility theories nevertheless lead to social preorders of outcomes that have been seen as canonically egalitarian, such as rank-dependent social preorders. Although our aggregation theorems are stated under conditions of risk, they are valid in more general frameworks for representing uncertainty or ambiguity.

2019

We characterize utilitarianism with interpersonally significant norms in a multi-profile and purely ordinal framework, i.e. without assuming that utilities have been measured beforehand.