Additively-separable and rank-discounted variable-population social welfare functions: A characterization

Abstract

Economic policy evaluations require social welfare functions for variable-size populations. Two important candidates are critical-level generalized utilitarianism (CLGU) and rank-discounted critical-level generalized utilitarianism, which was recently characterized by Asheim and Zuber (2014) (AZ). AZ introduce a novel axiom, existence of egalitarian equivalence (EEE). First, we show that, under some uncontroversial criteria for a plausible social welfare relation, EEE suffices to rule out the Repugnant Conclusion of population ethics (without AZ's other novel axioms). Second, we provide a new characterization of CLGU: AZ's set of axioms is equivalent to CLGU when EEE is replaced by the axiom same-number independence.

Utilitarianism on the front lines: COVID-19, public ethics, and the “hidden assumption” problem

“…Expected Critical-Level Generalized Utilitarianism (ECLGU). Spears & Stefánsson (2021) further generalise the results of (Asheim & Zuber, 2014, pp. 629-650) and explain that those who are drawn to Axioms 1-6 but wish to keep the common policy-evaluation practice of same-number independence might be tempted to use CLGU, which incorporates: 1. priority for the worse-off (for concave 𝑢), and 2. utilitarianism as special case (for linear 𝑢).…”

“…This allows for a richer and more concrete taxonomy, such as one proposed by (Blackorby, Bossert & Donaldson, 2005) and includes critical-level generalized utilitarianism, restricted critical-level generalized utilitarianism, number-sensitive critical-level generalized utilitarianism, restricted number-sensitive critical-level generalized utilitarianism, umber-dampened generalized utilitarianism (Hurka, 2000), and rank-discounted critical-level generalized utilitarianism (Asheim & Zuber, 2014, pp. 629-650;Spears & Stefánsson, 2021). The main properties of the axiomatic population ethics framework are tabulated in Table 1, which is a non-exhaustive list.…”