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Social Choice and Welfare

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22-02-2016

The greatest unhappiness of the least number

Authors: Walter Bossert, Kotaro Suzumura

Published in: Social Choice and Welfare | Issue 1/2016

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Abstract

We propose an alternative articulation of the Benthamite greatest-happiness-of-the-greatest-number principle. With ordinally measurable and interpersonally non-comparable utilities, the rule chooses those feasible alternatives that maximize the number of individuals who end up with their greatest element. This rule is tantamount to the plurality rule. Furthermore, in the spirit of Rawls’s maximin principle, we propose the greatest-unhappiness-of-the-least-number principle. In analogy to the greatest-happiness principle, the least-unhappiness principle is formally equivalent to the anti-plurality rule. Our main result is a characterization of the least-unhappiness principle.

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Title: The greatest unhappiness of the least number
Authors: Walter Bossert
Kotaro Suzumura
Publication date: 22-02-2016
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: Social Choice and Welfare / Issue 1/2016
Print ISSN: 0176-1714
Electronic ISSN: 1432-217X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-016-0951-6

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