Abstract

When individuals in a society have different preferences over the options available to the society, how should social decisions be taken so as to achieve a reasonable compromise? What are the principles that one should use in one’s ethical evaluation of different states of the society? These ethical issues are at the centre of the theory of social choice and welfare. While they have been discussed and debated for centuries, what the modern theory of social choice and welfare has done is to bring to bear formal reasoning in exploring them. The literature that has developed in this area over the last 70 years or so is vast and it is not possible to give in this short review even a list of the major developments. What I seek to do here is to focus on a few of the most conspicuous landmarks in this literature.