The influential legal philosopher, Alf Ross called for the development of law and economics but was highly skeptical of the use of fairness or social welfare concepts in the consequential analysis of law. I argue that Ross' dismissal of the concepts was influenced by the philosophy of logical...

The article discusses the claim, advanced e.g. by the philosopher R.G. Hare, that utilitarianism - conceived of as the summing of utilities of all parties affected by a social choice- is an 'objective' standard of fairness or justice that can be derived from simple principles which most people...