Fair Social Ordering, Egalitarianism, and Animal Welfare
Journal article: We study fairness in economies where humans consume one private good and one public good representing the welfare of other species. We show that a social evaluator cannot be egalitarian with respect to humans while always respecting humans’ unanimous preferences. One solution is to respect unanimous preferences only when doing so does not lead to a decrease in the welfare of other species. Social preferences satisfying these properties reveal surprising connections between concerns for other species, egalitarianism among humans, and unanimity: the latter two imply a form of dictatorship from humans with the strongest preference for the welfare of other species. (JEL D11, D63, H41)
Author(s)
Marc Fleurbaey, Martin van Der Linden
Journal
- American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
Date of publication
- 2021
Keywords JEL
Pages
- 466-491
URL of the HAL notice
Version
- 1
Volume
- 13