IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v54y2020i2d10.1007_s00355-019-01224-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Institutions and their ethical evaluation

Author

Listed:
  • Prasanta K. Pattanaik

    (University of California)

  • Yongsheng Xu

    (Georgia State University)

Abstract

An institution is viewed as an arrangement of the society through which various social states emerge as outcomes from the actions and interactions of individuals belonging to the society. Following an earlier contribution by Pattanaik and Suzumura (Oxford Economic Papers 48:194–212, 1996), we subscribe to the view that the ethical desirability of an institution is based on the goodness of the outcomes emerging from individuals’ actions and interactions via the institution as well as the intrinsic attractiveness of the institution itself. In this paper, we explore the structure of an individual’s ethical evaluations of institutions. For this purpose, we discuss how social choices are made through institutions given profiles of individual preferences over social states, propose several a priori properties of institutions and examine their plausibility, and introduce and discuss a lexicographic maximin rule for evaluating institutions ethically.

Suggested Citation

  • Prasanta K. Pattanaik & Yongsheng Xu, 2020. "Institutions and their ethical evaluation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 293-310, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:54:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s00355-019-01224-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-019-01224-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00355-019-01224-3
    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/s00355-019-01224-3?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. Prasanta Pattanaik, 2005. "Little and Bergson on Arrow's concept of social welfare," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 369-379, December.
    2. Pattanaik, Prasanta K & Suzumura, Kotaro, 1996. "Individual Rights and Social Evaluation: A Conceptual Framework," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 194-212, April.
    3. I. M. D. Little, 1952. "Social Choice and Individual Values," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(5), pages 422-422.
    4. Sugden, Robert, 1985. "Liberty, Preference, and Choice," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 213-229, October.
    5. repec:bla:econom:v:59:y:1992:i:234:p:161-77 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Pattanaik, Prasanta K. & Xu, Yongsheng, 2014. "The Ethical Bases Of Public Policies: A Conceptual Framework," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(2), pages 175-194, July.
    7. Sen, Amartya K, 1977. "Social Choice Theory: A Re-examination," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(1), pages 53-89, January.
    8. Abram Bergson, 1954. "On the Concept of Social Welfare," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 68(2), pages 233-252.
    9. Sen, Amartya Kumar, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Scholarly Articles 3612779, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    10. 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..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Kotaro Suzumura, 2002. "Introduction to social choice and welfare," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 442, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    2. Gabriel Leite Mota, 2007. "Why Should Happiness Have a Role in Welfare Economics? Happiness versus Orthodoxy and Capabilities," FEP Working Papers 253, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    3. Mathias Risse, 2001. "What to Make of the Liberal Paradox?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 169-196, March.
    4. Susumu Cato & Adrien Lutz, 2018. "Kenneth Arrow, moral obligations, and public policies," Working Papers halshs-01973898, HAL.
    5. 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.
    6. Ngo Long & Vincent Martinet, 2018. "Combining rights and welfarism: a new approach to intertemporal evaluation of social alternatives," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(1), pages 35-64, January.
    7. Ben McQuillin & Robert Sugden, 2011. "The representation of alienable and inalienable rights: games in transition function form," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(4), pages 683-706, October.
    8. John A. Weymark, 2011. "On Kolm’s Use of Epistemic Counterfactuals in Social Choice Theory," Studies in Choice and Welfare, in: Marc Fleurbaey & Maurice Salles & John A. Weymark (ed.), Social Ethics and Normative Economics, pages 279-301, Springer.
    9. John A Weymark, 2012. "Social Welfare Functions," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers vuecon-sub-13-00018, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    10. Krishna K Ladha, 2012. "Aristotle’s Politics: On Constitutions, Justice, Laws and Stability," Working papers 104, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    11. Songtao Wang & Bin Li & Tristan Kenderdine, 2019. "Towards a Utilitarian Social Welfare Function¡ªIncome Inequality and National Welfare Growth in China," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(3), pages 344-358, December.
    12. Kretz, Claudio, 2021. "Consistent rights on property spaces," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    13. Massimiliano Vatiero, 2023. "Extending Amartya Sen’s Paretian Liberal Paradox to a Firm’s Hierarchy," DEM Working Papers 2023/3, Department of Economics and Management.
    14. Guilhem Lecouteux & Ivan Mitrouchev, 2022. "Preference Purification in Behavioural Welfare Economics: an Impossibility Result," GREDEG Working Papers 2022-31, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    15. Steven Pressman & Gale Summerfield, 2000. "The Economic Contributions of Amartya Sen," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 89-113.
    16. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:30:y:2010:i:1:p:103-114 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Herrade Igersheim, 2006. "Libéralisme de la liberté versus libéralisme du bonheur. Le cas du paradoxe libéral-parétien," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(3), pages 389-398.
    18. Berrens, Robert P. & Polasky, Stephen, 1995. "The Paretian Liberal Paradox and ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 45-56, July.
    19. Peleg, Bezalel & Peters, Hans & Storcken, Ton, 2002. "Nash consistent representation of constitutions: a reaction to the Gibbard paradox," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 267-287, March.
    20. Kotaro Suzumura, 2005. "An interview with Paul Samuelson: welfare economics, “old” and “new”, and social choice theory," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 327-356, December.
    21. Guilhem Lecouteux & Ivan Mitrouchev, 2021. "The "View from Manywhere": Normative Economics with Context-Dependent Preferences," GREDEG Working Papers 2021-19, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.

    More about this item

    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:sochwe:v:54:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s00355-019-01224-3. 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.