As a general rule, I think that “algebraic” and “philosphical” discussions are not very useful for economic policy or instituional desing. In my view, cardinal utility + (some kind of) utility normalization are all needed.
Is there even a single political arrangement that leaves everybody “better off”? There are allways fringe people who would be better in the state of nature, so Pareto arguments are only robust in paper. The organic nature of social systems imply that we cannot base anything on too exact-algebraic or logical moral systems: they are never robust. You need averages, and other “smoothing” operators.
On the other hand the main defect of “naive” cardinal utilitarianism is the fact that utility is un-observable and its absolute level is totally un-observable.
As a general rule, I think that “algebraic” and “philosphical” discussions are not very useful for economic policy or instituional desing. In my view, cardinal utility + (some kind of) utility normalization are all needed.
Is there even a single political arrangement that leaves everybody “better off”? There are allways fringe people who would be better in the state of nature, so Pareto arguments are only robust in paper. The organic nature of social systems imply that we cannot base anything on too exact-algebraic or logical moral systems: they are never robust. You need averages, and other “smoothing” operators.
On the other hand the main defect of “naive” cardinal utilitarianism is the fact that utility is un-observable and its absolute level is totally un-observable.
A solution is this:
Relative utilitarianism, A Dhillon, JF Mertens—Econometrica, 1999
I have written this piece on issues parallel to those you are reviewing here:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3YKZEFYgTccGbpQvf/no-room-for-political-philosophy
Congratulations for the posts!