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    Harsanyi's aggregation theorem shows separability can be ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The decomposability of inequality indices and separability of social welfare functions carry significant ethical weight, not merely technical convenience.

    Harsanyi's aggregation theorem shows separability can be derived from expected utility axioms without presupposing any stance in the egalitarianism-prioritarianism debate.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Harsanyi derives separability purely from individual rationality axioms (completeness, transitivity, continuity) without importing distributional commitments.
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    • 2.The theorem shows separability is logically entailed by EU axioms, not smuggled in as an assumption, making it philosophically neutral on distribution.
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    • 3.Both egalitarians and prioritarians can accept EU rationality for individuals, so Harsanyi's result applies across moral frameworks neutrally.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.The veil of ignorance setup itself embeds a specific fairness conception that presupposes neutrality between persons—a non-neutral distributional stance.
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    • 2.EU axioms applied to social lotteries presuppose risk-neutrality over distributions, which already privileges linear aggregation over concave/convex alternatives.
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    • 3.Separability itself—treating individuals' utilities independently—mathematically encodes a non-egalitarian stance against weighted concern for worse-off groups.
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    Consequentialism1 linkedJustice & Punishment1 linked

    Related

    Both egalitarians and prioritarians can accept EU rationality for individuals, s...EU axioms applied to social lotteries presuppose risk-neutrality over distributi...Harsanyi derives separability purely from individual rationality axioms (complet...Separability itself—treating individuals' utilities independently—mathematically...
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    The decomposability of inequality indices and separability of social welfare fun...The theorem shows separability is logically entailed by EU axioms, not smuggled ...The veil of ignorance setup itself embeds a specific fairness conception that pr...

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    2 (1 for, 1 against)
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