This paper argues that the Pareto standard, by which policy changes are approved if they benefit at least one person and harms no one, is ethically questionable despite its nearly universal acceptance among economists and philosophers alike. As usually implemented, the Pareto standard bypasses actual consent, relying instead on hypothetical consent based on imputed measures of preferences or wellbeing. By so circumventing actual choice, the Pareto standard violates the respect for the dignity of autonomous agents, as emphasized by Immanuel Kant. If actual consent is obtained, however, the independent relevance of the Pareto standard is endangered.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Did you know? You can import bibliographic info in various formats into you bibliographic tool, or just into your word processor. See under "publisher info" on each abstract page.