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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Harsanyi's aggregation theorem shows separability can be derived from expected utility axioms without presupposing any stance in the egalitarianism-prioritarianism debate.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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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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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 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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