IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/inrvec/v65y2018i2d10.1007_s12232-018-0294-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What are the ethics of welfare economics? And, are welfare economists utilitarians?

Author

Listed:
  • Edward R. Morey

    (University of Colorado)

Abstract

Four questions: (1) What is welfare economics? (2) Is it an ethical system? (3) How do welfare economists differ from one another? And (4), how do they differ from other economic ethicists? Then utilitarianism is discussed. I was taught, and have inferred to others, that welfare economists are utilitarians. They are not. Welfare economics is an atypical form of welfare consequentialism: consequentialist in that whether an act or policy is right or wrong is a function of only its consequences—the adjective “welfare” because the only consequences that matter are the welfare (well-faring) consequences. Most welfare consequentialists are neither welfare economists nor utilitarians. And, most moral philosophers are not welfare consequentialists—neither are most normal folk.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward R. Morey, 2018. "What are the ethics of welfare economics? And, are welfare economists utilitarians?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 65(2), pages 201-230, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:inrvec:v:65:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s12232-018-0294-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s12232-018-0294-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12232-018-0294-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12232-018-0294-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hausman, Daniel M., 2010. "Hedonism And Welfare Economics," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 321-344, November.
    2. Sen, Amartya, 1979. "The Welfare Basis of Real Income Comparisons: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-45, March.
    3. Torsten Schmidt & Christian E. Weber, 2008. "On the Origins of Ordinal Utility: Andreas Heinrich Voigt and the Mathematicians," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 40(3), pages 481-510, Fall.
    4. Deirdre McCloskey, 2008. "Adam Smith, the Last of the Former Virtue Ethicists," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 43-71, Spring.
    5. K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    6. Frank H. Knight, 1944. "Realism and Relevance in the Theory of Demand," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 289-289.
    7. J. R. Hicks, 1941. "The Rehabilitation of Consumers' Surplus," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 8(2), pages 108-116.
    8. Sen, Amartya Kumar, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Scholarly Articles 3612779, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Sen, Amartya, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 152-157, Jan.-Feb..
    10. Hausman, Daniel M & McPherson, Michael S, 1993. "Taking Ethics Seriously: Economics and Contemporary Moral Philosophy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 671-731, June.
    11. Martha Nussbaum, 2012. "Who is the happy warrior? Philosophy, happiness research, and public policy," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 59(4), pages 335-361, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Noel Semple, 2021. "Good Enough for Government Work? Life-Evaluation and Public Policy," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1119-1140, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leo Katz & Alvaro Sandroni, 2020. "Limits on power and rationality," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 507-521, March.
    2. John A. Weymark, 2017. "Conundrums for nonconsequentialists," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 269-294, February.
    3. Clemens, Michael & Pritchett, Lant, 2016. "The New Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment," Working Paper Series rwp16-054, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Clemens, Michael A. & Pritchett, Lant, 2019. "The new economic case for migration restrictions: An assessment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 153-164.
    5. Mongin, Philippe, 2019. "Interview of Peter J. Hammond," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 50, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    6. Steven Pressman & Gale Summerfield, 2000. "The Economic Contributions of Amartya Sen," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 89-113.
    7. Susumu Cato & Adrien Lutz, 2018. "Kenneth Arrow, moral obligations, and public policies," Working Papers halshs-01973898, HAL.
    8. Robert Lepenies, 2014. "Economists as political philosophers : a critique of normative trade theory," RSCAS Working Papers 2014/11, European University Institute.
    9. Shengwu Li, 2017. "Ethics and market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 705-720.
    10. Piggins, Ashley & Salerno, Gillian, 2016. "Sen cycles and externalities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 25-27.
    11. Gebhard Kirchgässner & Mark Schelker, 2011. "Federalism and exit costs," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 191-197, June.
    12. Roth, Timothy P., 1999. "Consequentialism, rights, and the new social welfare theory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 95-109.
    13. Nikolai Hoberg & Stefan Baumgärtner, 2014. "Value pluralism, trade-offs and efficiencies," Working Paper Series in Economics 311, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    14. Colander, David, 2009. "What Was “It” That Robbins Was Defining?," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 437-448, December.
    15. Antoinette Baujard, 2016. "Utilitarianism and anti-utilitarianism," Chapters, in: Gilbert Faccarello & Heinz D. Kurz (ed.), Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis Volume III, chapter 40, pages 576-588, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Christian Roessler & Sandro Shelegia & Bruno Strulovici, 2018. "Collective Commitment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 347-380.
    17. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2020. "Arrow’s decisive coalitions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 463-505, March.
    18. Bernholz, Peter, 1997. "Property rights, contracts, cyclical social preferences and the Coase theorem: A synthesis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 419-442, September.
    19. Mariotti, Marco & Veneziani, Roberto, 2013. "On the impossibility of complete Non-Interference in Paretian social judgements," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1689-1699.
    20. Azam, Jean-Paul, 2008. "Macroeconomic Agenda for Fiscal Policy and Aid Effectiveness in Post-Conflict Countries," IDEI Working Papers 539, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Welfare economics; Utilitarianism (Benthamite; act; rule; and preference); Welfare consequentialism (WC); Well-being (WB); Emotional WB; Life-satisfaction WB; Preferences; Interests; Impartiality; Fairness; Justice; Loyalty; Holiness; Jeremy Bentham; John Harsanyi; Peter Singer;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B13 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Neoclassical through 1925 (Austrian, Marshallian, Walrasian, Wicksellian)
    • B20 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - General
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:inrvec:v:65:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s12232-018-0294-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.