Interpersonal comparison of resources and capabilities requires attention to relational and positional facts that a utility function, by design, encodes only through individual preference satisfaction.

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Reasons For

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Reason for

1.Utility functions measure only individual satisfaction, missing how resources affect relative status and social standing within communities.
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2.Two people with identical utility levels may face different real constraints based on their relative access to networks, information, and opportunities.
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3.Preference satisfaction reflects adaptive preferences; marginalized groups may report high utility despite constrained actual capabilities.
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Reasons Against

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Reason against

1.Relational facts about resources (comparative advantage, relative deprivation) are ultimately grounded in individual preference satisfaction differences.
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2.Utility functions can be enriched to encode positional goods and relative preferences without abandoning preference-based frameworks entirely.
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3.Attending to relational facts requires independent metrics; the claim provides no principled way to measure or compare positional advantages objectively.
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Key Terms

Capabilities(Capabilities approach): Real freedoms to achieve particular doings and beings, corrected for any potential impediments that would prevent their exercise
Individual preference satisfaction(as used in economics and ethics): How well a situation matches what a single person personally wants or prefers, based on their own tastes and values.
Positional facts(as used in social and economic philosophy): Information about a person's rank, status, or position relative to others in society, like being richer or more respected than average.
Relational facts(as used in metaphysics): True statements about how two or more things are connected to or compared with each other, rather than facts about a single thing alone.
interpersonal comparison(Welfare economics and social choice theory): A judgment about the relative well-being of different individuals, which requires an informational basis beyond individual preference orderings
resources(Resource egalitarianism): External material goods such as land and moveable property, and optionally personal traits or talents that function as instruments helping persons achieve their ends.
utility function(Used to explain why utilitarians must identify each person separately when utility functions differ across the population): A function describing the relationship between goods or policies received by an individual and the utility (welfare or satisfaction) that individual derives from them, which may differ across individuals

Connections

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Consequentialism1 linked Justice & Punishment1 linked

Attending to relational facts requires independent metrics; the claim provides n...Preference satisfaction reflects adaptive preferences; marginalized groups may r...

Details

Type: claim
Perspectives: 2 (1 for, 1 against)
Edits: 1 edit