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Interpersonal comparisons of the good : epistemic not impossible
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Coakley, Mathew (2016) Interpersonal comparisons of the good : epistemic not impossible. Utilitas, 28 (3). pp. 288-313. doi:10.1017/S0953820815000266 ISSN 0953-8208.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0953820815000266
Abstract
To evaluate the overall good/welfare of any action, policy or institutional choice we need some way of comparing the benefits and losses to those affected: we need to make interpersonal comparisons of the good/welfare. Yet sceptics have worried either: (1) that such comparisons are impossible as they involve an impossible introspection across individuals, getting ‘into their minds’; (2) that they are indeterminate as individual-level information is compatible with a range of welfare numbers; or (3) that they are metaphysically mysterious as they assume the existence either of a social mind or of absolute levels of welfare when no such things exist. This article argues that such scepticism can potentially be addressed if we view the problem of interpersonal comparisons as fundamentally an epistemic problem – that is, as a problem of forming justified beliefs about the overall good based on evidence of the individual good.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JC Political theory |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Epistemic logic -- Political aspects, Common good, Utility theory, Welfare economics | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Utilitas | ||||||||
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0953-8208 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 24 September 2016 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 28 | ||||||||
Number: | 3 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 288-313 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1017/S0953820815000266 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 18 March 2016 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 21 March 2016 |
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