PSCI 3325 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Acid Rain, Economic Surplus, Microsoft Onenote
27 Jan 2017
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Tuesday, october 4, 2016 12:25 pm: utilitarianism, rational decision making. Achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Have to rank things and nd the highest score policy: what does that even mean, utility function, people may rank things differently, different priorities and ideas. Aggregate standard, it takes no account of winners or losers. Kaldor-hicks compensation principle: as long as bene ts are positive, it is an ethically justi ed proposal, the winners could compensate the losers, but often they don"t, also, there are costs to compensate the losers, uses of cost-bene t analysis. Originally used for discrete construction projects: building a dam, adding a lane to a highway. Who counts? (standing: whose costs and whose bene ts are we counting, utilitarianism would say everybody, effectiveness should be measured among society at large, politically, we might not want to treat it that way, say, damming a river.
