Well-Being Lecture Series: Erik Angner at SLU on January 15, 2016

The Happiness & Well-Being Project is pleased to announce the first lecture in the Well-Being Lecture Series at Saint Louis University.

Erik Angner

(George Mason University) 

"There Is No Problem of Interpersonal Comparisons"

Abstract: The proposition that interpersonal comparisons of utility are impossible has been part and parcel of mainstream economics for almost a century. These days, the proposition is invoked inter alia in arguments against happiness-based measures of well-being, which often average happiness scores across populations in an effort to represent social welfare. In this talk, I will argue that interpersonal comparisons of utility are in fact implicit in virtually all traditional economic social welfare measures as well; if such comparisons are problematic, then, the problem is not unique to happiness-based measures. Fortunately, however, I will argue but that the proposition is a piece of zombie methodology: a methodological prescription that should have been dead and buried a long time ago. Social welfare measures have many problems, but interpersonal comparisons isn’t one.

Location: Saint Louis University, Xavier Hall 332

Date & Time: January 15, 2016, at 3:00 PM. 

A reception will follow in the first-floor common area of Adorjan Hall

Erik Angner's website: http://www.erikangner.com/