Interpersonal Comparisons of the Good: Epistemic not Impossible

Abstract

To evaluate the overall good/welfare of any action, policy or institutional choice we need some way of comparing the benefits and losses to those affected: we need to make interpersonal comparisons of the good/welfare. Yet sceptics have worried either: (1) that such comparisons are impossible as they involve an impossible introspection across individuals, getting 'into their minds'; (2) that they are indeterminate as individual level information is compatible with a range of welfare numbers; or (3) that they are metaphysically mysterious as they assume either the existence of a social mind or of absolute levels of welfare when no such things exist. This paper argues that such scepticism can potentially be addressed if we view the problem of interpersonal comparisons as fundamentally an epistemic problem -that is as a problem of forming justified beliefs about the overall good based on evidence of the individual good.

Equity issues in land acquisition: A source of delays in large construction projects in Vietnam

“…This resulted in much less internal comparisons in the second case. These finding support Courard-Hauri and Lauer (2012) and Coakley (2016) recognising that allocation policies could affect individuals differently among communities that enable interpersonal comparisons to evaluate these policies, and extend it further by identifying impacts of these policies on the quantity of interpersonal comparisons made by land-acquired communities, which is not evident in literature of equity and comparison.…”

“…Conducting comparisons is a natural cognitive reaction when individuals face events related to the allocation of resources (Boivie, Bednar, & Barker, 2015;Coakley, 2016;Mussweiler, 2011). Comparisons are conducted either with other persons, which are interpersonal comparisons, or with their own standard without comparison-others, which is intrapersonal comparison (Greenberg et al, 2007;Hayibor & Collins, 2016b;Jasso, 2006).…”

“…In addition, the different results of these comparisons were also triggered by other factors such as compensation policies. CourardHauri and Lauer (2012) and Coakley (2016) claim that allocation policies could affect individuals differently among communities that instigate interpersonal comparisons to evaluate these policies. Interpersonal comparisons are often classified into internal comparisons (referring to comparisons with others in the same organisations) and external comparisons (referring to comparison with others in other organisations) (Greenberg et al, 2007;Khoreva & Tenhiälä, 2016).…”

“…Particularly, the value of this contribution could be highlighted in comparison with existing literature. For example, the research of Mussweiler (2011) and Coakley (2016) did not provide sufficient types and details of equity comparisons.…”

Contractarianism

“…For discussion of the problems associated with interpersonal utility comparisons, seeHausman (1995),Adler (2014),Coakley (2016), and Barrett (2019), for example.…”