The incompatibility of individualism and ordinalism

Murray C Kemp; Yew Kwang Ng

doi:10.1016/0165-4896(82)90004-X

The incompatibility of individualism and ordinalism

Murray C Kemp, Yew Kwang Ng

Department of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A formal proof is offered of the fact that Individualism and Ordinalism imply the controversial condition A3 used by Kemp and Ng (1976) to show the non-existence of an individualistic social welfare function based only on ordinal preferences but objected to by Samuelson (1977) as unreasonable. Mayston's argument against our definition of ordinality is refuted; his notion of 'true ordinality' involves elements of cardinality and/or goes against individualism.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	33-37
Number of pages	5
Journal	Mathematical Social Sciences
Volume	3
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-4896(82)90004-X
Publication status	Published - Jul 1982

Keywords

individualism
ordinalism
Social welfare function

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10.1016/0165-4896(82)90004-X

Cite this

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AB - A formal proof is offered of the fact that Individualism and Ordinalism imply the controversial condition A3 used by Kemp and Ng (1976) to show the non-existence of an individualistic social welfare function based only on ordinal preferences but objected to by Samuelson (1977) as unreasonable. Mayston's argument against our definition of ordinality is refuted; his notion of 'true ordinality' involves elements of cardinality and/or goes against individualism.

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The incompatibility of individualism and ordinalism

Abstract

Keywords

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