Value Judgements, Positivism and Utility Comparisons in Economics

Journal of Economic Studies, 1989

The starting-point of the article is the inconsistency between the established practice of acceptance in many cases, of economic policy (i.e. progressive taxation, national insurance policies) and the theoretical rejection of interpersonal comparisons of utility who see it as an unscientific value judgement. The inconsistency is explained by identifying three groups of theorists: (1) those who thought of comparability as a value judgement and unacceptable for economic policy considerations (positivists), (2) those who agreed with the positivists, on the normative nature of comparability but accepted it as a basis for economic policy, and (3) those who thought of it as part of a scientific economics. The implication was that, despite the dominance of positivist methodology in other sub-fields, the historical experience points to the difficulty of applying positivist methodology to the issue of comparability. If the inconsistency is thus due to the inappropriateness of the positivist approach, the only possible solution is the explicit abandonment of this approach at least in matters related to the collective aspects of economics.

2020

The welfare economists have been confronted with the controversies of interpersonal comparisons or of value judgments for a long period of time. Following Pareto most of the conventional theory of welfare economics rested on the assumed value judgment that if one person was better off and no one was worse off welfare was increased. But without the knowledge of utility or welfare function none can be sure that satisfying those conditions is better than violating them. Moreover Paretian value judgment did not apply to a situation where some persons were benefited and some were harmed by some policy change. . Professor Amartya Kumar Sen in his article “Interpersonal Aggregation and Partial Comparability”, Econometrica 38, May1970, has made an attempt to provide a fairly rigorous presentation of a possible framework of interpersonal comparability. In this paper I have found out how far Prof. Sen’s partial comparability analysis suits our practical problem of evaluation of alternative so...

The welfare economists have been confronted with the controversies of interpersonal comparisons or of value judgments for a long period of time. Following Pareto most of the conventional theory of welfare economics rested on the assumed value judgment that if one person was better off and no one was worse off welfare was increased. But without the knowledge of utility or welfare function none can be sure that satisfying those conditions is better than violating them. Moreover Paretian value judgment did not apply to a situation where some persons were benefited and some were harmed by some policy change.. Professor Amartya Kumar Sen in his article " Interpersonal Aggregation and Partial Comparability " , Econometrica 38, May1970, has made an attempt to provide a fairly rigorous presentation of a possible framework of interpersonal comparability. In this paper I have found out how far Prof. Sen's partial comparability analysis suits our practical problem of evaluation of alternative social states in respect of social welfare. At the same time I have tried to point out unexplored part of the problems of measurement of social welfare and comparability. In course of my exploration I have kept it in my mind that both welfare and non-welfare information constitute the appropriate basis of social welfare evaluation.

2006

Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy shows through argument and numerous examples how understanding moral philosophy can improve economic analysis, how moral philosophy can benefit from economists' analytical tools, and how economic analysis and moral philosophy together can inform public policy. Part I explores rationality and its connections to morality. It argues that in defending their model of rationality, mainstream economists implicitly espouse contestable moral principles. Part II concerns welfare, utilitarianism, and standard welfare economics, and Part III considers important moral notions that are left out of standard welfare economics, such as freedom, rights, equality, and justice. Part III also emphasizes the variety of moral considerations that are relevant to evaluating policies. Part IV then introduces technical work in social choice theory and game theory that is guided by ethical concepts and relevant to moral theorizing. Chapters include recommended readings, and the book includes a glossary of relevant terms.

Éthique et Économique / Ethics and Economics, 2018

It is common to muse over the perils of thinking like an economist. There is, we are told, something missing when we only weigh the costs and benefits of some options before us, and then choose the one that will lead to the greatest utility. Such a view is now commonplace in philosophy curriculums, and it has been defended, for example, by Michael Sandel, Debra Satz, and Elizabeth Anderson. This paper, conversely, explains how scholars regularly underestimate the extent to which economics applies to their viewpoint, and how the field of economics is frequently portrayed in a misleading way. It will make clear the perils of not thinking like an economist, especially for philosophers, and it will right the caricatures we can too often hear about economists. Both philosophers and economists think about the same issue, namely the question of value. Economics, however, examines the consequences of value judgments, and as such it is an essential feature of any practical proposition about value in society.

NEW ESSAYS IN LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, London: College Publications, p. 433-446 , 2010

This article reviews the question of whether or not the study of values has or ought to have an important role in the study of economics. The positivist view of Robbins is criticised. Economists cannot ignore the formation of values in their assessment of welfare especially when welfare is affected by the growth and development of the economy. This is illustrated for instance by Weckstein's theory of welfare criteria and changing tastes which indicates that the variables which economists have conventionally regarded as being the determinants of an individual's welfare are not the relevant ones. Similarly the theory advanced by Scitovsky in The Joyless Economy, though different from those of Weckstein and of Marcuse, suggest that economists may not be selecting appropriate measures of welfare. Hollis and Nell, Gintis, Peacock and Rowley have also criticised the limited focus of welfare economics (Paretian welfare economics) from other points of view. The point is made that there are unresolved problems of relevance to economics concerning values·and preferences which can in principle be studied along positivist lines. There is a strong case for economists giving more consideration to these problems.

Interpersonal comparisons of well-being, 1993

Public Choice: Analysis of Collective Decision-Making eJournal, 2021

This chapter focuses on the inner rationale and consequences of four different archetypal positions regarding how ethical and political values are tackled in welfare economics. Welfare economics is standardly associated with the welfarist framework, for which social welfare is based on individual utility only. Beyond this, we distinguish the value-neutrality claimfor which ethical values should be and are out of the scope of welfare economics-, the value confinement idealfor which ethical values are acceptable if they are minimal and consensual-, the transparency requirementfor which any ethical values may be acceptable in the welfare economics framework if explicit and formalized-, and the entanglement claimwhich challenges the very possibility of demarcation between facts and values.