The Case of Many Persons

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Can we make interpersonal comparisons of well‐being? The nature of the problem of interpersonal comparison changes as the account of well‐being that one adopts changes, and our question is, are interpersonal comparisons of well‐being possible on the best account of well‐being, viz. the informed‐desire account with a high standard for ‘informed’. After discussing John Harsanyi's idea of an extended utility function and the idea of a deep monistic utility function, the chapter concludes that, as the informed‐desire account gives us something approaching an objective list of elements of well‐being, the terms in which we speak quantitatively about one person's well‐being are not relative to other things that this individual wants but relative to quantitative assessment of other people's well‐being. There is, therefore, no gap between assessments of different persons’ well‐being that needs bridging. The chapter concludes with discussions of intra‐personal, inter‐temporal comparisons and of comparisons on a large social scale.

This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit: