Classical Utilitarianism and the methodology of determinate choice, in economics and in ethics

Abstract

This paper argues that modern economic theory is essentially utilitarian with one significant exception: its abandonment of a multi-dimensional conception of utility. The paper reviews three alternative methods by which utility can be portrayed as a one-dimensional, hence determinate, index of desire, while suggesting that none of them can command empirical support. A second theme of the paper is that classical utilitarianism, by denying the ontological existence of intrinsic worth, implies the coincidence of economic and ethical aggregate optimality: those choices that maximize the self-perceived happiness of rational agents are also the right choices. Non-utilitarian ethics, by contrast, attains determinate optima by means of an a priori designation of intrinsic worth. It is argued that most philosophers, following G. E. Moore, have missed the true issue that divides utilitarian and non-utilitarian ethics, for they have presumed that all ethical systems presuppose intrinsic worth.