A lot of the debates concerning economics tend to focus around which policy, or more generally which economic system, is most "efficient." This of course presupposes that utilitarianism is the ethical theory upon which to build our economic views. In the absence of any justification as to why our goal should be to increase aggregate measures of "efficiency" or "average utility," any argument based on this presupposition is invalid. Most people (regardless of political views) tend to make this mistake. So, to all of you utilitarians, provide a justification for your utilitarianism. Thread started at Forum 4 Politics on 04-08-2012 02:46 PM
This is based on an error over the definition of efficiency. A pareto efficient outcome makes no reference to 'average utility'. It only informs us that, to make one person better off, we have to make someone else worse off. There's no comparison between the various efficient possibilities (via the contract curve). We can leave welfare economics to make those comparisons. Then we can reject the simple 'average utility' approach, such as adopting a Rawlsian maximin approach
You are too unintelligent to understand the OP. This is to be expected. Your copy & paste has nothing to do with anything. There is no implication that "efficiency" and "average utility" refer to the same thing. This is something you made up because you could not provide an adequate response. So, try again. To make it simpler for your inferior brain, I will pose two distinct and unrelated questions. Since the majority of economic arguments on political forums seem to be based on utilitarian principles, these questions need to be addressed. Now, clearly not everyone falls into the category of utilitarian - however, most do. 1) Why should increasing efficiency be the primary goal economic policy? Efficiency could be whatever you define it to be (including but not limited to Pareto efficiency.) 2) Why should increasing average utility be the primary goal economic policy? Answer one of the above (whichever is applicable to you.) If none apply to you, these questions can be ignored.
I'll quote you, just for the entertainment: If an allocation of resources is Pareto efficient if no other allocation exists such that more of something can be created (utility or output) without a loss elsewhere, this implies that average utility is maximized. That is a very poor error, demonstrating only that you don't understand the concept. So, try again. To make it simpler for your inferior brain, I will pose two distinct and unrelated questions. Since the majority of economic arguments on political forums seem to be based on utilitarian principles, these questions need to be addressed. Now, clearly not everyone falls into the category of utilitarian - however, most do. It isn't the 'primary goal'. Who gave you that idea? However, clearly a pareto inefficient result is inconsistent with the exhaustion of mutually beneficial exchange. It isn't. You could refer to a social welfare function. However, they have nothing to do with maximising some average utility (a meaningless idea of course as there is no such thing as utils) You've constructed a thread based only on erroneous comment
There is nothing erroneous about anything in the OP (you just misunderstood it because you are not very bright). The thread was constructed based on the common arguments made by people on political forums. Are you a utilitarian? If not, you have nothing to contribute.
The comment "If an allocation of resources is Pareto efficient if no other allocation exists such that more of something can be created (utility or output) without a loss elsewhere, this implies that average utility is maximized" has only come from you!I also note that you don't have the means to respond to my comments. Are you denying that a pareto inefficient result is inconsistent with the exhaustion of mutually beneficial exchange? Are you denying that there is no such beast as an util? Are you denying that the policy maker will adopt a social welfare function which has nothing to do with average utility? Come on, try some content!
No one attempts to quantify a 'util' when applying utility maximization to public policy. What an absurd and bizarre comment to make.
How do you apply utility maximisation to public policy? I've got a feeling that I'm going to find your response amusing
I'm not sure that forum posters or policymakers adopt an overwhelmingly utilitarian approach. After all, it's possible that a 'pareto-efficient' outcome could result in one player monopolizing the 'utils.' I'd think most policy is more concerned with distributive justice and/or dealing with externalities as opposed to simply maximizing utility. Efficiency or "average utility" is often sacrificed to reduce variance among the players; it may be a smaller pie, but it's sliced "more equally." That said, I'm curious about the original point you were trying to make but I'm afraid I can't fill the 'utilitarian antogonist' role you are looking for.
A practical example would be in the analysis of public policy. For example, in the presence of constrained optimization, the effect of a federal assistance program like 'Temporary Assistance for Needy Families' on the budget constraint of individuals could be investigated. If this program guarantees $5000 for example, the optimal choice of an individual could take X hours of leisure and Y dollars of consumption given their tradeoff perference between leisure/consumption. If the benefit from TANF falls below $5000, the amount of consumption decrease could be obtained given their preference curve under the assumption of utility maximization.
I disagree. The majority of arguments tend to focus on which specific policies lead to better outcomes for the majority of people. One specific example that comes to mind is public healthcare. The argument for those in favor tends to be along the lines of "nations with universal healthcare have more efficient healthcare systems than we do." They go on to say that taxing the 1% at a substantially higher rate to pay for this is justified. This is a utilitarian argument. Another example is the response to the financial crisis and what needs to be done. Most of these arguments are centered around what regulations need to be legislated to make the financial system more efficienct and less prone to collapse. Again, another utilitarian argument.
I don't know that I agree. I think both of the arguments above could be framed as distributive justice arguments. That is, it's more "fair" for healthcare to be accessible and affordable to a greater number of people even if the overall or average utility is not maximized. A true utilitarian would want to maximize overall utility even if that resulted in huge discrepancies among the players.
But they usually are not framed in that way. At least not most of the time. However, you touched on something important when you mentioned "true utilitarian." I contend that there is no such thing as a strict utilitarian. Utilitarianism in general is incoherent & irrational, but strict utilitarianism would lead to genocide or other abuses of liberty on the same scale as the abuses in Nazi Germany. As a result, the majority of utilitarians tend to pick and choose when to argue about efficiency and when to incorporate morality into their arguments. It's this inconsistency that makes them difficult to argue with.
One cannot refer to a budget constraint to refer to utility maximisation. One can only refer to a hypothetical point of tangency between a budget constraint and an individual indifference curve. There is no way of using that to derive a public policy. We cannot aggregate those curves as that would break the very assumptions of utility theory. By referring to a budget constraint you're actually just referring to accountancy! Further, your reference to the leisure/consumption trade-off makes no sense as hours constraints are the norm
Well, since the concept of 'utility' is a rather abstract one (as I think Reiver was pointing out with his comments about the imaginary nature of utils) it's pretty much impossible to be a 'true utilitarian' except in an academic sense. You can't really maximize something you can't measure. So I'd agree with your comments regarding people who claim to be utilitarian. But I honestly think you're giving most people too much credit if you believe they've rationally examined their positions and labeled themselves "utilitarians." I think most forum posters and policymakers just use whatever argument is most expedient to their goals and if "greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people" fits the bill then they run with it. Furthermore, "greatest good" may mean very different things to different people (not just efficient), so I wouldn't be too quick to label those people utilitarians.
