Can we measure inequity? Can we arrive at a number or numbers capturing the extent to which a given society is equitable or inequitable? Sometimes such questions are answered with a “no”: equity is a qualitative, non-numerical consideration. This Article offers a different perspective. The...

This paper presents a methodology for constructing an interpersonally comparable measure of individual well-being, which I dub the “extended preferences” approach. That term was first used by John Harsanyi, and the approach here builds upon (although in important respects also departs from)...

Cost-benefit analysis is a widely used governmental evaluation tool, though academics remain skeptical. This volume gathers prominent contributors from law, economics and philosophy for discussion of cost-benefit analysis, specifically its moral foundations, applications,and limitations....

Does individual desert matter for distributive justice? Is it relevant, for purposes of justice, that the pattern of distribution of justice’s “currency” (be it well-being, resources, preference-satisfaction, capabilities, or something else) is aligned in one or another way with the...

What are the methodologies for assessing and improving governmental policy in light of well-being? The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of this topic. The contributors draw from welfare economics, moral philosophy, and...

What does distributive justice require of risk regulators? Various executive orders enjoin health and safety regulators to take account of "distributive impacts," "equity," or "environmental justice," and many scholars endorse these requirements. But concrete methodologies for evaluating the...

How should agencies and legislatures evaluate possible policies to mitigate the impacts of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural hazards? In particular, should governmental bodies adopt the sorts of policy-analytic and risk assessment techniques that are widely used in the area of...

This book provides a systematic account of CBA as a welfarist decision procedure. We reject the traditional defense of CBA in terms of Kaldor-Hicks efficiency, and argue instead that CBA is a workable proxy for overall well-being. We also modify the preference-based account of well-being to...

Risk assessment is now a common feature of regulatory practice, but fear assessment is not. In particular, environmental, health and safety agencies such as EPA, FDA, OSHA, NHTSA, and CPSC, commonly count death, illness and injury as costs for purposes of cost-benefit analysis, but almost never...

“Prioritarianism” is an ethical theory that gives extra weight to the well-being of the worse off. Prioritarianism has been much discussed in the philosophical literature over the last thirty years, where it has emerged as an important competitor to utilitarianism. Like utilitarianism,...