The value of limited altruism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blackorby, C; Bossert, W; Donaldson, D
• 署名单位: University of British Columbia; Universite de Montreal; Universite de Montreal
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1006/jeth.2000.2675
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 37-70
• 关键词: Social choice; altruism; consequentialism

摘要

Discounting the utilities of future people or giving smaller weights to groups other than one's own is often criticized on the grounds that the resulting objective function differs from the ethically appropriate one. This paper investigates the consequences of changes in the discount rate and weights when they are moved toward the warranted ones. Using the utilitarian value function, it is shown that, except in restrictive special casts, those moves do not necessarily lead to social improvements. We suggest that limitations to altruism are better captured by maximizing the appropriate value function subject to lower bounds on some utilities. Journal of Economic Classification Numbers: D63, D71. (C) 2000 Academic Press.