{"id":48897,"date":"2020-01-23T10:17:22","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T10:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/granthaminstitute\/?post_type=publication&#038;p=48897"},"modified":"2024-09-18T17:08:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T16:08:20","slug":"fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting","status":"publish","type":"publication","link":"https:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/granthaminstitute\/publication\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\/","title":{"rendered":"Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<?xml encoding=\"UTF-8\"><p>Ramsey famously condemned discounting &ldquo;future enjoyments&rdquo; as &ldquo;ethically indefensible&rdquo;. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion which, when social choice is utilitarian, implies giving equal weight to all individuals&rsquo; utilities. By contrast, Arrow (Contemporary economic issues. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1999a; Discounting and Intergenerational Effects, Resources for the Future Press, Washington DC, 1999b) accepted, perhaps reluctantly, what he called Koopmans&rsquo; (Econometrica 28(2):287&ndash;309, 1960) &ldquo;strong argument&rdquo; implying that no equitable preference ordering exists for a sufficiently unrestricted domain of infinite utility streams. Here we derive an equitable utilitarian objective for a finite population based on a version of the Vickrey&ndash;Harsanyi original position, where there is an equal probability of becoming each person. For a potentially infinite population facing an exogenous stochastic process of extinction, an equitable <em class=\"EmphasisTypeItalic \">extinction biased<\/em> original position requires equal <em class=\"EmphasisTypeItalic \">conditional<\/em> probabilities, given that the individual&rsquo;s generation survives the extinction process. Such a position is well-defined if and only if survival probabilities decline fast enough for the expected total number of individuals who can ever live to be finite. Then, provided that each individual&rsquo;s utility is bounded both above and below, maximizing expected &ldquo;extinction discounted&rdquo; total utility&mdash;as advocated, <em class=\"EmphasisTypeItalic \">inter alia<\/em>, by the <em class=\"EmphasisTypeItalic \">Stern Review<\/em> on climate change&mdash;provides a coherent and dynamically consistent equitable objective, even when the population size of each generation can be chosen.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Chichilnisky, G., Hammond, P.J. &amp; Stern, N. Soc Choice Welf (2020). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s00355-019-01236-z<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<?xml encoding=\"UTF-8\"><p>Ramsey famously condemned discounting &ldquo;future enjoyments&rdquo; as &ldquo;ethically indefensible&rdquo;. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion which, when social choice is utilitarian,&hellip;<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tags":[214,1275,965],"publication-type":[436],"topic_area":[4694],"class_list":["post-48897","publication","type-publication","status-publish","hentry","tag-discounting","tag-equitable","tag-utilitarianism","publication-type-research-articles","topic_area-policy-evaluation"],"acf":{"exclude_from_sync":{"ref_value":"field_560538b0e7350","value":"0","type":false,"post_type":""},"downloads":{"ref_value":"field_52f16cc1a80f2","value":false,"type":"repeater","post_type":""},"rss_newsletter":{"ref_value":"field_54f5c2c1544d8","value":"","type":false,"post_type":""},"profile_link":{"ref_value":"field_52f164b5189e9","value":["nicholas-stern"],"type":"relationship","post_type":"profile"},"article_link":{"ref_value":"field_52eee3c7f0586","value":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s00355-019-01236-z","type":false,"post_type":""},"article_link_title":{"ref_value":"field_5322399d89d42","value":"External link to article","type":false,"post_type":""},"spotlight":{"ref_value":"field_52f80896506d3","value":"","type":false,"post_type":""},"show_translations_widget":{"ref_value":"field_6203d588c41e8","value":"0","type":false,"post_type":""}},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/granthaminstitute\/publication\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ramsey famously condemned discounting &ldquo;future enjoyments&rdquo; as &ldquo;ethically indefensible&rdquo;. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion which, when social choice is utilitarian,...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/granthaminstitute\/publication\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-18T16:08:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/publication\\\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/publication\\\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\\\/\",\"name\":\"Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-01-23T10:17:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-09-18T16:08:20+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/publication\\\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/publication\\\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/publication\\\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Publications\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/?post_type=publication\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"All research\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/publication-type\\\/new-research\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Research article\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/publication-type\\\/research-articles\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":5,\"name\":\"Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/\",\"name\":\"Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment\",\"description\":\"The Grantham Research Institute at LSE carries out world-class research on climate change and the environment.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lse.ac.uk\\\/granthaminstitute\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/granthaminstitute\/publication\/fundamental-utilitarianism-and-intergenerational-equity-with-extinction-discounting\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment","og_description":"Ramsey famously condemned discounting &ldquo;future enjoyments&rdquo; as &ldquo;ethically indefensible&rdquo;. 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