Measurement-Theoretic Foundations of Preference Aggregation Logic for Weighted Utilitarianism
نویسنده
چکیده
Harsanyi [4, 5] develops expected utility theory of von Neumann and Morgenstern [21] to provide two formalizations of utilitarianism. Weymark [22, 23] refers to these results as Harsanyi’s Aggregation and Impartial Observer Theorems. In this paper, we are concerned only with Aggregation Theorem. Sen [6] argues that von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility theory is an ordinal theory and, therefore, any increasing transform of an expected utility function is a satisfactory representation of an individual’s preference relation. However, utilitarianism requires a cardinal theory of utility and so Harsanyi is not justified in giving his theorems utilitarian interpretations. Sen’s informal discussion of these issues is formalized by Weymark [22]. Broome [2] calls this argument the “standard objection” to Harsanyi’s theorems. The aims of this paper are as follows: (1) As our response to the standard objection, we show in terms of measurement theory that Harsanyi’s Aggregation Theorem plus Bernoulli Hypothesis and Probability Agreement Hypothesis can imply weighted utilitarianism. (2) We propose a new version of complete logic for preference aggregation represented by a weighted utilitarian rule—Preference Aggregation Logic for Weighted Utilitarianism (PALU) by means of measurement theory.
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