IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v190y2020ics0022053120301010.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Subjective utilitarianism: Individual decisions in a social context

Author

Listed:
  • Alon, Shiri
  • Lehrer, Ehud

Abstract

Individual decisions are often subjectively affected by other-regarding considerations. We model a decision maker influenced by a grand group of significant others. Each sub-group of significant others is a possible social context, and the decision maker has different preferences in different social contexts. An axiomatic characterization of such preferences is offered. The characterized representation takes a simple subjective utilitarian form: (a) the decision maker ascribes to each significant other a utility function, representing the decision maker's subjective perception of this other person's tastes, and (b) in any specific social context the decision maker evaluates alternatives by adding together her or his own personal utility and the sum of all group members' utilities as subjectively perceived by the decision maker.

Suggested Citation

  • Alon, Shiri & Lehrer, Ehud, 2020. "Subjective utilitarianism: Individual decisions in a social context," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:190:y:2020:i:c:s0022053120301010
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2020.105108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053120301010
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2020.105108?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Segal, Uzi & Sobel, Joel, 2007. "Tit for tat: Foundations of preferences for reciprocity in strategic settings," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 197-216, September.
    2. Segal, Uzi & Sobel, Joel, 2007. "Tit for tat: Foundations of preferences for reciprocity in strategic settings," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 197-216, September.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    5. Efe A. Ok & Levent KoÚkesen, 2000. "Negatively interdependent preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 17(3), pages 533-558.
    6. Edi Karni & Zvi Safra, 2002. "Individual Sense of Justice: A Utility Representation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 263-284, January.
    7. Martin Dufwenberg & Paul Heidhues & Georg Kirchsteiger & Frank Riedel & Joel Sobel, 2011. "Other-Regarding Preferences in General Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 613-639.
    8. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    9. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2012. "Social Decision Theory: Choosing within and between Groups," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1591-1636.
    10. Andrew Postlewaite, 2010. "Social Norms and Preferences," PIER Working Paper Archive 10-019, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    11. Chaim Fershtman & Uzi Segal, 2018. "Preferences and Social Influence," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 124-142, August.
    12. Bergstrom, Ted, 1989. "Love and Spaghetti, the Opportunity Cost of Virtue," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 165-173, Spring.
    13. Kockesen, Levent & Ok, Efe A. & Sethi, Rajiv, 2000. "The Strategic Advantage of Negatively Interdependent Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 274-299, June.
    14. , & ,, 2012. "Ashamed to be selfish," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(1), January.
    15. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(4), pages 309-309.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yazdanabad, Hadi Pahlevan, 2024. "Justification within and between social contexts with the possibility of choice deferral," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joel Sobel, 2009. "Generous actors, selfish actions: markets with other-regarding preferences," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 56(1), pages 3-16, March.
    2. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2012. "Social Decision Theory: Choosing within and between Groups," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1591-1636.
    3. Ellingsen, Tore & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Decency," Working Papers 2019:3, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    4. Luciano Andreozzi & Matteo Ploner & Ivan Soraperra, 2013. "Justice among strangers. On altruism, inequality aversion and fairness," CEEL Working Papers 1304, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    5. Bierbrauer, Felix & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "Mechanism design and intentions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 557-603.
    6. Cheung, Paul H.Y., 2025. "Revealed reciprocity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    7. repec:ehu:ikerla:6416 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Vásquez, Jorge & Weretka, Marek, 2020. "Affective empathy in non-cooperative games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 548-564.
    9. Astrid Gamba & Elena Manzoni & Luca Stanca, 2017. "Social comparison and risk taking behavior," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(2), pages 221-248, February.
    10. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2012. "Fairness, risk preferences and independence: Impossibility theorems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 606-612.
    11. Bartling, Björn & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "An externality-robust auction: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 186-204.
    12. Brice Corgnet, 2018. "Rac(g)e Against the Machine? Social Incentives When Humans Meet Robots," Post-Print halshs-01984467, HAL.
    13. Stefan Trautmann, 2010. "Individual fairness in Harsanyi’s utilitarianism: operationalizing all-inclusive utility," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(4), pages 405-415, April.
    14. Abhinash Borah, 2021. "Individual sense of justice and Harsanyi’s impartial observer," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(1), pages 167-199, July.
    15. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    16. Lionel Page & Daniel G. Goldstein, 2016. "Subjective beliefs about the income distribution and preferences for redistribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(1), pages 25-61, June.
    17. Martin Dufwenberg & Paul Heidhues & Georg Kirchsteiger & Frank Riedel & Joel Sobel, 2011. "Other-Regarding Preferences in General Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 613-639.
    18. Kranz, Sebastian, 2010. "Moral norms in a partly compliant society," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 255-274, January.
    19. Deffains, Bruno & Espinosa, Romain & Fluet, Claude, 2019. "Laws and norms: Experimental evidence with liability rules," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    20. Andreozzi, Luciano, 2013. "Learning to be fair," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 181-195.
    21. Schniter, Eric & Sheremeta, Roman & Shields, Timothy, 2015. "The Problem with All-or-nothing Trust Games: What Others Choose Not to Do Matters In Trust-based Exchange," MPRA Paper 68561, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:190:y:2020:i:c:s0022053120301010. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.