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Article: From cardinal to ordinal utility theory: Darwin and differential capacity for happiness.
- Article from:
- The American Journal of Economics and Sociology
- Article date:
- July 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lionel Robbins Remembers
JUST SIX YEARS AFTER his Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science created a stir in economics with its query about the scientific status of interpersonal utility comparisons (Robbins [19321 1935: 136-140), Lionel Robbins remembered how he came to be a "provisional" utilitarian:
My own attitude to problems of political action has always been
one of what I might call provisional utilitarianism.... I have
always felt that, as a first approximation in handling questions
relating to the lives and actions of large masses of people, the
approach which counts each man as one, and, on that ...