Collective interest versus individual interest in Bentham'sfelicific calculus. Questioning welfarism and fairness

Abstract

The core idea of utilitarianism for Bentham is to establish that only individual utilities count in social welfare. There can be two distinct interpretations of this apparently simple principle. According to one view, individual utilities represent the basic information for the calculation of social welfare: this is how utilitarianism works. According to a second view, social welfare is maximized if and only if individual utilities are maximized: this is what justifies utilitarianism. This aim of this paper is to show: that these two interpretations should not be confused; that they correspond to distinct definitions of welfarism; that they are likely to conflict; and that as a consequence we can draw important and surprising conclusions for political philosophy and economic science. One such conclusion is that fairness should be prior to goodness in a consistent Benthamian doctrine.Interest, utility, is and ought, external effects, goodness and fairness, welfarism, formal welfarism, ethical welfarism,

Value Judgments and Economics Expertise

“…Paul is supposed to conform to these expectations just as if there existed an evaluative notion of good or better that is commonly accepted by people. 6 Obligations as applied to groups imply that such 'sociological facts' do exist, while a recommendation may simply suppose that the client holds that such a case is likely to occur, or that it is worth considering as a reasonable assumption. Concretely, this means that experts may suppose that their clients are likely to want to act according to certain principles of action that the recommendation they formulate is supposed to reflect.…”

“…The middle stage, expertise, contains four phases: (2) request, (3) selection of the model, (4) application to the data, and (5) formulation of a report, with descriptions, evaluations and prescriptions. The decision phase (6), which comes last, may include a political process in the case of a public decision. To take into account this interdependence of the three categories of judgments in the decision process, I propose to work backwards in order to reconstitute how the recommendation is arrived at.…”

“…Independent analyses might reveal that some of her assertions logically entail a certain ethical theory which appears to be contrary to the scientist's explicit intentions. For instance, Baujard (2010) showed that Bentham's ethical welfarism implies his prior commitment to fairness over goodness, contrary to the basic principles of his utilitarianism. In the case of the specific task of describing values -as in the case of the axioms of inequality indices -, I would label this production as neutral.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2010

“…The history of economic and political thought provides strong inspiration for scholars this year. Baujard re‐evaluates the concept of welfarism and fairness in the work of Jeremy Bentham. Dixon and Wilson examine Thomas Chalmers's view of the market as a force for determining character and regulating social order.…”

Saint-Simonism and Utilitarianism: The History of a Paradox: Bentham’s Defence of Usury Under Saint-Amand Bazard’s Interpretation

“…This morality do not result from the natural harmonization of interests. It also asks for the Legislator's intervention so as to reach an artificial harmonization of these very same interests (Baujard 2010). Therefore, the Benthamite Legislator corresponds to the Saint-Simonian Organizer.…”