Utilitarianism, as well as many other political and moral doctrines, presupposes that the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons can be solved. Otto Neurath gave a comparatively early (1912) and explicit statement of this problem, and he suggested that it cannot be solved. This may still be the dominant view. It is argued that recent attempts to solve the problem (by e.g. Schick, Rescher, Harsanyi, Brandt, Jeffrey, Arrow, and Hare) are unsatisfactory, but that the oldest suggestion - i.e. (...) the method of minimal units or just-noticeable differences - is acceptable from the point of view of utilitarianism. (shrink)

Until quite recently, it has appeared that eleutheric-conjectural libertarianism (ECL) could not avoid some degree of, very broad, interpersonal utility comparisons (IUCs). And this has been objected to by some of its libertarian critics, notably economists and propertarians. Indeed, this aspect does make the theory less compatible with economics than the rest of the theory and it is thereby a significant problem. This is because one of the main problems that ECL is intended to solve is how (...) an abstract theory of liberty can be compatible with the pro-free-market conclusions of many economists. Being more compatible with economics should make ECL theory more comprehensive, comprehensible, and cogent. (shrink)

According to a popular strategy amongst economists and philosophers, in order to solve the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons, we have to look at how ordinary people make such comparisons in everyday life. The most recent attempt to develop this strategy has been put forward by Goldman in his “Simulation and Interpersonal Utility” (Ethics 4:709–726, 1995). Goldman claims, first, that ordinary people make interpersonal comparisons by simulation and, second, that simulation is reliable (...) for making interpersonal comparisons. In this paper, I focus on Goldman’s latter claim. After updating Goldman’s account of how ordinary people make interpersonal comparisons in the light of Goldman’s newest formulation of his simulation theory of mental ascription (Goldman, Simulating Minds. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006), I develop and assess Goldman’s arguments in favour of the reliability of simulation for interpersonal comparisons. I argue that, under certain conditions, there may be room for a scientifically acceptable solution to the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons. (shrink)

Hausman has recently provided an argument against identifying well-being with preference-satisfaction. I will focus on two of his premises. Hausman’s arguments for the first, I will suggest, fail. If the third premise is correct, I shall then argue, it can be used to undermine other plausible conceptions of the good.

I consider an old problem for preference satisfaction theories of wellbeing: that they have trouble answering questions about interpersonal comparisons, such as whether I am better off than you are, or whether a particular policy benefits me more than it benefits you. I argue that a similar problem arises for intrapersonal comparisons in cases of transformative experience. I survey possible solutions to the problem, and point out some subtle disanalogies between the problem involving interpersonal comparisons (...) and the problem involving transformative experience. (shrink)

According to the orthodox view, it is impossible to know how different people's preferences compare in terms of strength and whether they are interpersonally comparable at all. Against the orthodox view, Donald Davidson (1986, 2004) argues that the interpersonal comparability of preferences is a necessary condition for the correct interpretation of other people's behaviour. In this paper I claim that, as originally stated, Davidson's argument does not succeed because it is vulnerable to several objections, including Barry Stroud's (1968) objection (...) against all transcendental arguments of a 'strong' kind. However, I argue that Davidson's strategy can still achieve results of anti-sceptical significance. If we reformulate Davidson's argument as a 'modest' transcendental argument and if we embrace an 'internal' account of epistemic justification, it is in fact possible to have at least justified beliefs about how different people's preferences compare in terms of strength and about their interpersonal comparability. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that, in everyday life, we compare different people’s preferences with respect to content and strength. We typically make such comparisons with relatively little difficulty. Furthermore, we often do not find inter-personal comparisons of preferences more difficult than intra-personal comparisons, that is,comparisons involving our own preferences. This contrasts with the difficulties that comparing preferences across individuals pose at the theoretical level. Since preferences are typically represented numerically through a utility function, the problem (...) is known as the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons (IUCs for short). In this paper, I examine the most common solution to the problem of IUCs. According to it, we can assume that preferences are interpersonally comparable on pragmatic grounds (i.e. explanatory power, parsimony and simplicity) I argue that, contrary to our intuitions, the assumption of interpersonal comparability is not pragmatically advantageous. I conclude that this strategy to solve the problem of IUCs fails. (shrink)

The issue of interpersonal comparisons of utility is about the possibility (or not) of comparing the utility or welfare or the mental states in general, of different individuals. Embedded in the conceptual framework of utilitarianism, interpersonal comparisons were admissible in economics as part of the theoretical justification of welfare policies until the first decades of the twentieth century. Under the strong influence of the scientific philosophy of positivism as reflected in the works of early (...) neoclassical economists and as epitomized by Lionel Robbins, utility comparisons were subsequently rejected as a value judgement. Robbins’ methodological stance is still prevalent among mainstream economists. Despite the explicit rejection of comparability by the majority of economists, interpersonal comparisons are necessary for many key policy issues, such as progressive taxation, social welfare policies, GDP-based welfare comparisons, cost–benefit analysis, and public goods provision. In this paper, the case of interpersonal utility comparisons is discussed as an illustrative example of the usefulness of the study of the role of value judgements, and generally of the interrelationship between ethics and economics. It is argued that the current tension between theory and policy practice might be resolved through the efforts of prominent economists and philosophers to challenge positivism, and especially its problematic treatment of value judgements and of ethical assumptions in general. The discussion also provides more strength to the view that policy makers and their economic advisers cannot avoid ethical questions in their analysis of the workings of the economic system. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show how research in cognitive science is relevant to a certain theoretical issue in moral theory, namely, the legitimacy of interpersonal utility (IU) comparisons.

This article argues that there is a natural solution to carry out interpersonal comparisons of utility when the theory of gambles is supplemented with a group operation of joint receipts. If so, three types of people can exist, and the two types having multiplicative representations of joint receipt have, in contrast to most utility theories, absolute scales of utility. This makes possible, at least in principle, meaningful interpersonal comparisons of utility with desirable (...) properties, thus resolving a long standing philosophical problem and having potentially important implications in economics. Two behavioral criteria are given for the three classes of people. At this point the relative class sizes are unknown. (shrink)

On the orthodox view in economics, interpersonal comparisons of utility are not empirically meaningful, and "hence" impossible. To reassess this view, this paper draws on the parallels between the problem of interpersonal comparisons of utility and the problem of translation of linguistic meaning, as explored by Quine. I discuss several cases of what the empirical evidence for interpersonal comparisonsof utility might be and show that, even on the strongest of these, interpersonal (...) comparisons are empirically underdetermined and, if we also deny any appropriate truth of the matter, indeterminate. However, the underdetermination can be broken non-arbitrarily (though not purely empirically) if (i) we assign normative significance to certain states of affairs or (ii) we posit a fixed connection between certain empirically observable proxies and utility. I conclude that, even if interpersonal comparisons are not empirically meaningful, they are not in principle impossible. (shrink)

This paper presents the experimental results of a “Transcontinental Ultimatum Game” implemented between India and France. We use a standard ultimatum game, but in one treatment Indian subjects made offers to French subjects (ItoF treatment) and, in another treatment, French subjects made offers to Indian subjects (FtoI treatment). We observed that FtoI treatment bargaining mostly ended up with unequal splits of money in favor of French, while nearly equal splits were the most frequent outcome in ItoF treatment interactions. The experimental (...) results are organized through a standard social reference model, modified for taking into account the different marginal value of money for bargainers. In our model bargaining is driven by relative standings comparisons between players, occurring in terms of real earnings (that is monetary earnings corrected for a purchasing power factor) obtained in the game. The norm of equity behind the equalization of real earnings is called local equity norm, and contrasted to a global equity norm which would encompass the wealth of players beyond the game. According to what we observed, no beyond-game concern seems to be relevantly endorsed by subjects. (shrink)

Many ethical theories, including in particular consequentialist moral the ories, require comparisons of the amount of good possessed or received by different people. In the case of some goods, such as monetary income, wealth, education, or health, such comparisons are relatively unproblematic. Even in the case of such goods there may be serious empirical measurement problems, but there appear to be no difficulties in principle. Thus Cooter and Rappoport maintained that there was no serious difficulty of making (...) class='Hi'>interpersonal utility comparisons for an earlier generation of economists who regarded utility as an index of “material welfare.”. (shrink)

’Tis vain to talk of adding quantities which after the addition will continue to be as distinct as they were before; one man’s happiness will never be another man’s happiness: a gain to one man is no gain to another: you might as well pretend to add 20 apples to 20 pears.

A major problem for interpersonal aggregation is how to compare utility across individuals; a major problem for decision-making under normative uncertainty is the formally analogous problem of how to compare choice-worthiness across theories. We introduce and study a class of methods, which we call statistical normalization methods, for making interpersonal comparisons of utility and intertheoretic comparisons of choice-worthiness. We argue against the statistical normalization methods that have been proposed in the literature. We argue, instead, (...) in favor of normalization of variance: we claim that this is the account that most plausibly gives all individuals or theories ‘equal say’. To this end, we provide two proofs that variance normalization has desirable properties that all other normalization methods lack, though we also show how different assumptions could lead one to axiomatize alternative statistical normalization methods. (shrink)

The main question of this paper is how people may agree in their interpersonal comparisons of wellbeing. These comparisons are important in social ethics and for policy purposes. The paper firstly examines grounds for convergence in easy cases. Then comes a more difficult case of low convergence in order to explore a way to increase it. For this, concepts from the empirical subjective well-being literature are used: life satisfaction and vignettes. Ideas of John Harsanyi and Serge Kolm (...) thereby receive a new look. (shrink)

Most moral and political theories require us to make interpersonal comparisons of welfare. This poses a challenge to the popular view that welfare consists in the satisfaction of preferences or des...

Abstract:I examine from a conventionalist perspective the Nash bargaining problem that philosophers use as a tool for analyzing fair division. From this perspective, the solutions to bargaining problems are conventions that can emerge from inductive learning and focal point effects. I contrast the conventionalist approach to analyzing the bargaining problem with the better-known rational choice approach, which I criticize for having overly demanding epistemic presuppositions and for producing disappointing results. I apply a simple model of inductive learning to specific bargaining (...) problems to show that agents can learn from repeated experience to follow a variety of bargaining conventions in a given problem. I conclude that such agents can come to regard two such conventions as focal for the bargaining problem, one that assigns claimants equal shares of a good and another egalitarian solution of equal payoff gains, and that the egalitarian solution tends to prevail when these two solutions differ. I conclude further that the above analysis lends support for admitting interpersonal utility comparisons into the analysis of fair division problems, and also suggests a focal point explanation of the wide acceptance of the Aristotelian proportionality principle of distributive justice. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued that interpersonal comparisons of utility are problematic or even impossible, and that this poses a problem for the thesis that pleasure is a legitimate, measurable quantity. This, in turn, is thought to pose a problem of some kind for a variety of normative ethical and axiological theories. Perhaps it is supposed to show that utilitarianism or hedonism is false, or is supposed to show that there is no genuine hedonic calculus, or that any (...) view that presupposes that pleasure and pain are morally relevant is false or untenable. Its proponents begin by noticing that interpersonal comparisons of pleasure and pain are impossible in some relevant sense. This impossibility has been exploited by different philosophers for different purposes. It is clear, however, that a great many ethical theories rely in some way on the thesis that pleasure is measurable, and that its incoherence therefore threatens a great many theories in ethics. The purpose of this paper is to survey several of the most interesting versions of this argument; then to explain several attempts to respond to the problem, and to explain why each attempt fails; then to present, explain, and defend the correct solution to the problem. (shrink)

This paper builds upon, but substantially revises, John Harsanyi's concept of ‘extended preferences’. An individual ‘history’ is a possible life that some person (a subject) might lead. Harsanyi supposes that a given spectator, formulating her ethical preferences, can rank histories by empathetic projection: putting herself ‘in the shoes’ of various subjects. Harsanyi then suggests that interpersonal comparisons be derived from the utility function representing spectators’ (supposedly common) ranking of history lotteries. Unfortunately, Harsanyi's proposal has various flaws, including (...) some that have hitherto escaped scholarly attention. In particular, it ignores the limits of personal identity. If the subject has welfare-relevant attributes that the spectator cannot acquire without changing who she is, full empathetic identification of the latter with the former becomes impossible. This paper proposes instead to usesympathyas the attitude on a spectator's part that allows us to make sense of her extended preferences. Sympathy – an attitude of care and concern – is a psychological state quite different from empathy. We should also allow for hetereogeneity in spectators’ extended preferences. Interpersonal comparisons emerge from a plurality of sympathetic spectators, not (as per Harsanyi) from a common empathetic ranking. (shrink)

Ever since the Harsanyi-Sen debate, it is controversial whether someone's welfare should be measured by her von-Neumann-Morgenstern (VNM) utility, for instance when analysing welfare intensity, social welfare, interpersonal welfare comparisons, or welfare inequality. We prove that natural working hypotheses lead to a different welfare measure. It addresses familiar concerns about VNM utility, by faithfully capturing non-ordinal welfare features such as welfare intensity, despite resting on purely ordinal evidence such as revealed preferences or self-reported welfare comparisons. (...) Using this welfare measure instead of VNM utility alters social welfare analysis -- for instance, Harsanyi's `utilitarian theorem' now effectively supports prioritarianism. VNM utility is shown to be a hybrid object, determined by an interplay of two factors: welfare and attitude to intrinsic risk, i.e., to risk in welfare rather than outcomes. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical critique of social choice theory insofar as it deals with the normative evaluation of voting and voting rules. I will argue that the very method of evaluating voting rules in terms of whether they satisfy various conditions is deeply problematic because introducing strategic behaviour leads to a violation of any condition that makes a difference between voting rules. I also argue that it is legitimate to make interpersonal comparisons of utilities in voting theory. (...) Combining a realistic account of voters’ behaviour with a utilitarian evaluation of the outcomes then leads to the judgment that strategic voting is beneficial. If it is, then Arrow's theorem does not have far-reaching consequences for democracy because one of its conditions is not normatively acceptable. (shrink)

review of two similar collections on well-being.

This chapter of the Handbook of Utility Theory aims at covering the connections between utility theory and social ethics. The chapter first discusses the philosophical interpretations of utility functions, then explains how social choice theory uses them to represent interpersonal comparisons of welfare in either utilitarian or non-utilitarian representations of social preferences. The chapter also contains an extensive account of John Harsanyi's formal reconstruction of utilitarianism and its developments in the later literature, especially when society (...) faces uncertainty rather than probabilistic risk. (shrink)

Can a preference-based conception of welfare accommodate changes in people's preferences? I argue that the fact that people care about which preferences they have, and the fact that people can change their preferences about which preferences it is good for them to have, together undermine the case for accepting a preference-satisfaction conception of welfare.

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. (shrink)

In interactive situations, agents can “learn” something that is not a preexisting truth. They can converge to an arbitrary convention, or tacit agreement. Once established they may even view it as an objective truth. Here we investigate accommodation dynamics for interpersonal comparisons of utility intervals. We show, for a large class of dynamics, convergence to a convention.

The two purposes of this essay. The general philosophical problem with most versions of social libertarianism and how this essay will proceed. The specific problem with liberty explained by a thought-experiment. The positive and abstract theory of interpersonal liberty-in-itself as ‘the absence of interpersonal initiated constraints on want-satisfaction’, for short ‘no initiated impositions’. The individualistic liberty-maximisation theory solves the problems of clashes, defences, and rectifications without entailing interpersonal utility comparisons or libertarian consequentialism. The practical implications (...) of instantiating liberty: three rules of liberty-in-practice, 1) initial ultimate control of one’s body, 2) initial ultimate control of one’s used resources, 3) consensual interpersonal interactions and resource transfers. These rules are economically efficient and maximise general want-satisfaction. Private property and legal remedies are additional practical institutional aspects, but to which ‘initiated impositions’ then apply prima facie. Libertarian law is often mistaken for complete libertarianism. Moral explanations are a separate issue. The three main moral theories imply libertarianism, but it can be morally posited independently of them. Critical rationalism and its application. No empirical or argumentative support for theories. An important ambiguity with ‘justification’. How the epistemology applies to the theory of liberty and its application but remains separable in principle. Conclusion: there are further published explanations but this should be enough to generate useful criticism. Appendix replying to some typical comments. (shrink)

Although the standard theory and actual practice of cost-benefit analysis are seriously defective, the general idea of making social policy in accord with an aggregative, maximizing, consequentialist criterion is a sensible one. Therefore it is argued, against Bantz, that interpersonal utility comparisons can be meaningful, and, against both Bantz and MacLean, that quantitative overall assessments of expected value provide a presumptively rational basis for social choice. However, it does not follow that introducing cost-benefit tests into the political (...) or legal process would always be optimal: recognizing some quite stringent legal rights against involuntary exposure to pollution or risk may actually promote cost-beneficial results more reliably than cost-benefit tests employed in very imperfect circumstances. (shrink)

In a recent examination of the origins of ordinal utility theory in neoclassical economics, Robert D. Cooter and Peter Rappoport argue that the ordinalist revolution of the 1930s, after which most economists abandoned interpersonal utility comparisons as normative and unscientific, constituted neither unambiguous progress in economic science nor the abandonment of normative theorizing, as many economists and historians of economic thought have generally believed. Rather, the widespread acceptance of ordinalism, with its focus on Pareto optimality, simply (...) represented the emergence of a new neoclassical research agenda that, on the one hand, defined economics differently than had the material welfare theorists of the cardinal utility school and, on the other, adopted a positivist methodology in contrast to the less restrictive empiricism of the cardinalists. (shrink)

In this article, I shall suggest an approach to the justification of normative moral principles which leads, I think, to utilitarianism. The approach is based on asking what moral norms we would each endorse if we had no prior moral commitments. I argue that we would endorse norms that lead to the satisfaction of all our nonmoral values or goals. The same approach leads to a view of utility as consisting of those goals that we would want satisfied. In (...) the second half of the article, I examine the implication of this view for several issues about the nature of utility, such as the use of past and future goals. The argument for utilitarianism is not completed here. The rest of it requires a defense of expected-utility theory, of interpersonal comparison, and of equal consideration. (shrink)

David Friedman posed a number of libertarian philosophical problems (Friedman 1989). This essay criticizes Walter Block’s Rothbardian responses (Block 2011) and compares them with J C Lester’s critical-rationalist, libertarian-theory responses (Lester [2000] 2012). The main issues are as follows. 1. Critical rationalism and how it applies to libertarianism. 2.1. How libertarianism is not inherently about law and is inherently about morals. 2.2. How liberty relates to property and can be maximized: carbon dioxide and radio waves. 2.3. Applying the theory to (...) flashlights. 2.4. Applying the theory to the probability of imposed risks. 2.5. “Homesteading” or initial acquisition. 2.6 What is “essential” for a “true libertarian.” 2.7. Crime and punishment. 2.8. Extent of punishment. 2.9. The libertarian response to a madman with a gun. 2.10. How contradictions in rights are possible. 2.11. The draft. 3.1. Utilitarian libertarianism and “nose counting”. 3.2. How interpersonal comparisons of utility are possible and utility monsters are not a threat. 3.3. Why it is not utilitarian in practice to kill an innocent prisoner to prevent a riot. 3.4. Why David Friedman should not be forced to give up one of his eyes. 3.5. How utilitarians can be libertarians. Conclusion: a proper theory of liberty combined with critical rationalism offers superior solutions to Friedman’s problems. Appendix: replies to two commentators. (shrink)

Comparisons between utilities pose a pressing problem if, while incapable of being grounded, they are required in ethical deliberation. My aim is to consider whether there are epistemological impediments to implementing such ethical choices. Can we find ourselves being persuaded of the ethical need to compare utilities of different individuals, yet unable to do so because the comparisons cannot be warranted? I argue that the problem cannot arise; no plausible moral principle will invoke magnitudes which are inscrutable.

This paper summarizes and rebuts the three standard objections made by social choice theorists against interpersonal utility. The first objection argues that interpersonal utility is measningless. I show that this objection either focuses on irrelevant kinds of meaning or else uses implausible criteria of meaningfulness. The second objection argues that interpersonal utility has no role to play in social choice theory. I show that on the contrary interpersonal utility is useful in formulating (...) goals for social choice. The third objection argues that interpersonal utility in social choice theory can be replaced by clearer notions. I show that the replacements proposed are unsatisfactory in either interpersonal utility's descriptive or explanatory role. My conclusion is that interpersonal utility has a legitimate place in social choice theory. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis —understood as a technique for evaluating governmental policies in light of individual well-being—rests upon a preference view of welfare. A policy’s effect on a given individual is measured, on a money scale, with reference to her preferences as between money and other goods, captured in her “utility” function. This chapter describes the methodology of CBA, and discusses the various conditions on individual preferences that are required for the existence of an individual utility function, for the use (...) of money as a scale for measuring policy effects, and for a nexus between an individual’s preference-satisfaction and her well-being. The chapter then turns to the topic of interpersonal welfare comparisons. Although CBA is often defended with reference to the criterion of Kaldor-Hicks efficiency, which eschews such comparisons, a more plausible defense embraces them and sees CBA as an approximation to a social welfare function. (shrink)

Christian von Ehrenfels was a student of both Franz Brentano and Carl Menger and his thinking on value theory was inspired both by Brentano’s descriptive psychology and by the subjective theory of economic value advanced by Menger, the founder of the Austrian school of economics. Value, for Ehrenfels, is a function of desire, and we ascribe value to those things which we either do in fact desire, or would desire if we were not convinced of their existence. He asserts that (...) the needed theoretical understanding of values is to be achieved by generalizing economic laws of valuation to apply to value in general. The law of marginal utility, for example, is a law to the effect that the n+1st sample of a good which I receive is ceteris paribus less valuable than the nth sample (imagine that the samples in question are, for example, a series of identical ham sandwiches). The essay describes how Ehrenfels provides on this basis an account of the different types of values, both intrinsic and non-intrinsic. It outlines also Ehrenfels views on the problem of interpersonal value-comparisons and on the struggle for survival between different values of different types. (shrink)

Christian von Ehrenfels was a student of both Franz Brentano and Carl Menger and his thinking on value theory was inspired both by Brentano’s descriptive psychology and by the subjective theory of economic value advanced by Menger, the founder of the Austrian school of economics. Value, for Ehrenfels, is a function of desire, and we ascribe value to those things which we either do in fact desire, or would desire if we were not convinced of their existence. He asserts that (...) the needed theoretical understanding of values is to be achieved by generalizing economic laws of valuation to apply to value in general. The law of marginal utility, for example, is a law to the effect that the n+1st sample of a good which I receive is ceteris paribus less valuable than the nth sample (imagine that the samples in question are, for example, a series of identical ham sandwiches). The essay describes how Ehrenfels provides on this basis an account of the different types of values, both intrinsic and non-intrinsic. It outlines also Ehrenfels views on the problem of interpersonal value-comparisons and on the struggle for survival between different values of different types. (shrink)