A focus on the information used in Bentham’s felicific calculus sheds new light on the contemporary debate in normative economics opposing non-welfarism to welfarism. As a utilitarian, Bentham is de facto welfarist on a moral sense. Unexpectedly, this study shows Bentham resorts to non-welfarist information in his calculus. Thus, technical non-welfarism is coherent with moral welfarism, and even, the former proves necessary not to betray utilitarian principles. To sustain this claim, we challenge a view opposing a “cardinal” to an “ordinal” calculus: these two calculi constitute different stages of a unique calculus; because of operational constraints, Bentham is bound to rely on proxies, hence on non-utility information.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith) B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
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