Norm-Endorsement Utilitarianism and the Nature of Utility

1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Baron
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Utility Theory ◽  
Expected Utility Theory ◽  
Interpersonal Comparison ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Future Goals ◽  
Equal Consideration

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 (see Baron, 1993; Broome, 1991).

scholarly journals Interpersonal Comparison of Utility by Measuring Neural Activity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaosu Matsumori ◽  
Kazuki Iijima ◽  
Yukihito Yomogida ◽  
Kenji Matsumoto
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Impossibility Theorem ◽  
Interpersonal Comparison ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Economic Goods ◽  
Household Incomes

Aggregating welfare across individuals to reach collective decisions is one of the most fundamental problems in our society. Interpersonal comparison of utility is pivotal and inevitable for welfare aggregation, because if each person's utility is not interpersonally comparable, there is no rational aggregation procedure that simultaneously satisfies even some very mild conditions for validity (Arrow's impossibility theorem). However, scientific methods for interpersonal comparison of utility have thus far not been available. Here, we have developed a method for interpersonal comparison of utility based on brain signals, by measuring the neural activity of participants performing gambling tasks. We found that activity in the medial frontal region was correlated with changes in expected utility, and that, for the same amount of money, the activity evoked was larger for participants with lower household incomes than for those with higher household incomes. Furthermore, we found that the ratio of neural signals from lower-income participants to those of higher-income participants coincided with estimates of their psychological pleasure by "impartial spectators", i.e. disinterested third-party participants satisfying specific conditions. Finally, we derived a decision rule based on aggregated welfare from our experimental data, and confirmed that it was applicable to a distribution problem. These findings suggest that our proposed method for interpersonal comparison of utility enables scientifically reasonable welfare aggregation by escaping from Arrow's impossibility and has implications for the fair distribution of economic goods. Our method can be further applied for evidence-based policy making in nations that use cost-benefit analyses or optimal taxation theory for policy evaluation.

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