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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    The Bergson-Samuelson approach is incomplete because it l... — Carmelics
    Home/Justice & Punishment
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    The Bergson-Samuelson approach is incomplete because it lacks specific justification for the fairness principles underlying the utility construction.

    ConsequentialismJustice & Punishment
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Rawls's veil of ignorance demonstrates that utility aggregation requires prior justification of the distributive principles it embeds.
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    • 2.The Bergson-Samuelson social welfare function smuggles in interpersonal comparisons without grounding them in any explicit theory of fairness.
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    • 3.Sen's capability critique shows that preference-based utility construction systematically ignores adaptive preferences, revealing an unjustified normative baseline.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Arrow's impossibility theorem establishes that no aggregation procedure can satisfy all minimal fairness conditions simultaneously without prior normative commitment.
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    • 2.The Bergson-Samuelson framework presupposes Pareto optimality as a fairness principle, yet Pareto optimality is itself contested and requires independent justification.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Bergson and Samuelson did not specify which fairness principles justify constructing utility functions from preference orderings.
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    • 2.Without specifying those principles, the construction cannot be fully evaluated or applied.
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    Topics

    Justice & PunishmentConsequentialism

    Connections

    2 topics

    Social Contract1 linkedTruth & Knowledge1 linked

    Related

    Arrow's impossibility theorem establishes that no aggregation procedure can sati...Bergson and Samuelson did not specify which fairness principles justify construc...Rawls's veil of ignorance demonstrates that utility aggregation requires prior j...Sen's capability critique shows that preference-based utility construction syste...
    +3 moreShow less
    The Bergson-Samuelson framework presupposes Pareto optimality as a fairness prin...The Bergson-Samuelson social welfare function smuggles in interpersonal comparis...Without specifying those principles, the construction cannot be fully evaluated ...

    Similar

    Bergson and Samuelson did not specify which fairness principles justif...82%Bergson and Samuelson held that individual utility functions are to be...77%If multiple procedures satisfy the same fairness requirement, fairness...76%Constant direct appeal to the first principle of utility is unnecessar...76%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: economic-justice
    View source passageHide passage
    Bergson (1938) and Samuelson (1947, 1981) occupy a special position, which may be described as a third way between old and new welfare economics. From the former, they retain the goal of making complete and consistent social welfare judgments with the help of well-defined social welfare functions. The formula W(U1(x),…,Un(x)) is often named a “Bergson-Samuelson social welfare function” (x is the social state; Ui(x), for i=1,…,n, is individual i’s utility in this state). With the latter, however,
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit