Wulf Gaertner

Since Aristotle, many different theories of distributive justice have been proposed, by philosophers as well as social scientists. The typical approach within social choice theory is to assess these theories in an axiomatic way – most of the time the reader is confronted with abstract reasoning and logical deductions. This book shows that empirical insights are necessary if one wants to apply any theory of justice in the real world. It does so by confronting the main theories of distributive justice with data from (mostly) questionnaire experiments. The book starts with an extensive discussion on why empirical social choice makes sense and how it should be done. It then presents various experimental results relating to theories of distributive justice, including the Rawlsian equity axiom, Harsanyi's version of utilitarianism, utilitarianism with a floor, responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, the claims problem and fairness in health.

Wulf Gaertner provides a comprehensive account of an important and complex issue within social choice theory: how to establish a social welfare function while restricting the spectrum of individual preferences in a sensible way. Gaertner's starting point is K. J. Arrow's famous 'Impossibility Theorem', which showed that no welfare function could exist if an unrestricted domain of preferences is to be satisfied together with some other appealing conditions. A number of leading economists have tried to provide avenues out of this 'impossibility' by restricting the variety of preferences: here, Gaertner provides a clear and detailed account, using standardized mathematical notation, of well over forty theorems associated with domain conditions. Domain Conditions in Social Choice Theory will be an essential addition to the library of social choice theory for scholars and their advanced graduate students.

Wulf Gaertner provides a comprehensive account of an important and complex issue within social choice theory: how to establish a social welfare function while restricting the spectrum of individual preferences in a sensible way. Gaertner's starting point is K. J. Arrow's famous 'Impossibility Theorem', which showed that no welfare function could exist if an unrestricted domain of preferences is to be satisfied together with some other appealing conditions. A number of leading economists have tried to provide avenues out of this 'impossibility' by restricting the variety of preferences: here, Gaertner provides a clear and detailed account, using standardized mathematical notation, of well over forty theorems associated with domain conditions. Domain Conditions in Social Choice Theory will be an essential addition to the library of social choice theory for scholars and their advanced graduate students.

It is probably fair to say that there does not exist a unique and generally accepted not ion of justice. Even if one confines oneself to economic justice one can still get many answers to the question of how justice - henceforth we shall use the term "distributive justice" ­ should be defined and characterized. This may be disappointing for the outside observer but one can also view this as achallenge, at least as long as one thinks that distributive justice is an issue economics should be concerned with. Many problems of distributive justice can be described as follows: There is a fixed collection of well-defined objects (usually commodi­ ties) which are quantitatively measurable and perfectly divisible. This collection is to be divided up among a certain number of individuals, the members of society, let 's say. According to which principles or rules should this distribution be carried out? Should people be rewarded according to their ability or according to their needs? Should the distribution be such that nobody envies the bundle of any other member of society? Should the collection of entities be distributed in a way that yields the greatest benefi.