IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04834045.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are long-lived persons utility monsters?

Author

Listed:
  • Grégory Ponthière

    (ENS Rennes - École normale supérieure - Rennes, CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Nozick's ‘utility monster' is often regarded as impossible, because one life cannot be better than a large number of other lives. Against that view, I propose a purely marginalist account of utility monster defining the monster by a higher sensitivity of well-being to resources (instead of a larger total well-being), and I introduce the concept of collective utility monster to account for resource predation by a group. Since longevity strengthens the sensitivity of well-being to resources, large groups of long-lived persons may, if their longevity advantage is sufficiently strong, fall under the concept of collective utility monster, against moral intuition.

Suggested Citation

  • Grégory Ponthière, 2024. "Are long-lived persons utility monsters?," Post-Print hal-04834045, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04834045
    DOI: 10.1017/s0266267124000373
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04834045v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-04834045v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1017/s0266267124000373?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fleurbaey, Marc & Leroux, Marie-Louise & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2014. "Compensating the dead," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 28-41.
    2. Ronald Lee, 2003. "The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 167-190, Fall.
    3. Marc Fleurbaey & Gregory Ponthiere, 2023. "Measuring well-being and lives worth living," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 1247-1266, May.
    4. Chappell, Richard Yetter, 2021. "Negative Utility Monsters," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 417-421, December.
    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. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2022. "Optimal lockdown and social welfare," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 241-268, January.
    2. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2012. "The Public Economics of Increasing Longevity," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 200(1), pages 41-74, March.
    3. Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2016. "Longevity Variations And The Welfare State," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 207-239, June.
    4. Ponthiere, Gregory, 2024. "Stoicism and the Value of Life," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1545, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Ryan Edwards, 2013. "The cost of uncertain life span," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1485-1522, October.
    6. Leroux, Marie-Louise & Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthière, Grégory, 2015. "Longévité différentielle et redistribution : enjeux théoriques et empiriques," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 91(4), pages 465-497, Décembre.
    7. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    8. Schäfer, Andreas, 2014. "Technological change, population dynamics, and natural resource depletion," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 122-136.
    9. Chiara Ludovica Comolli, 2017. "The fertility response to the Great Recession in Europe and the United States: Structural economic conditions and perceived economic uncertainty," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(51), pages 1549-1600.
    10. Silke van Daalen & Hal Caswell, 2015. "Lifetime reproduction and the second demographic transition: Stochasticity and individual variation," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(20), pages 561-588.
    11. Sha Jiang & Shripad Tuljapurkar & Hal Caswell & Zhen Guo & Wenyun Zuo, 2023. "How does the demographic transition affect kinship networks?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 48(32), pages 899-930.
    12. Zsofia Barany & Nicolas Coeurdacier & Stéphane Guibaud, 2015. "Fertility, Longevity and International Capital Flows," Working Papers hal-01164462, HAL.
    13. Grégory Ponthière, 2020. "Pensions and social justice. From standard retirement to reverse retirement," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(6), pages 193-226.
    14. David Lam, 2011. "How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary Demographic History," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1231-1262, November.
    15. Marie‐Louise Leroux & Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2024. "The optimal design of assisted reproductive technologies policies," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(7), pages 1454-1479, July.
    16. Shi, Qun & Tyers, Rod, 2005. "Global Demographic Change and Economic Performance: Applications of an Augmented GTAP-Dynamic," Conference papers 331414, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    17. Andrés F. Castro Torres, 2020. "Analysis of Latin American fertility change in terms of probable social classes," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-001, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    18. Rafael Barrera Gutiérrez, 2011. "El vacío institucional en el modelo de elección racional aplicado a la fecundidad," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 13(25), pages 223-248, July-Dece.
    19. repec:hal:pseose:hal-01095463 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Michael Clemens, 2014. "Does Development Reduce Migration? - Working Paper 359," Working Papers 359, Center for Global Development.
    21. Daniel Barbezat, 2011. "The Economic History of European Growth," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 51, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    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:hal:journl:hal-04834045. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.