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EQUAL VALUE OF LIFE AND THE PARETO PRINCIPLE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2004

Andreas Hasman  and
Lars Peter Østerdal
Andreas Hasman
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Lars Peter Østerdal
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
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Abstract

A principle claiming equal entitlement to continued life has been strongly defended in the literature as a fundamental social value. We refer to this principle as ‘equal value of life'. In this paper we argue that there is a general incompatibility between the equal value of life principle and the weak Pareto principle and provide proof of this under mild structural assumptions. Moreover we demonstrate that a weaker, age-dependent version of the equal value of life principle is also incompatible with the weak Pareto principle. However, both principles can be satisfied if transitivity of social preference is relaxed to quasi-transitivity.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , April 2004 , pp. 19 - 33
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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