Classical Utilitarianism Revisited

Abstract: A compelling and commonly held view is that individuals' lifetime well-being can be represented by the integral of their instantaneous utility over time. Under this conception of well-being, the present paper shows that the classical utilitarian social welfare function is characterized by a set of remarkably weak anonymity and dominance axioms. The key insight of the paper is that this characterization result is immune to the main ethical objections that have been raised in response to prior axiomatizations of utilitarianism.

Link to latest version: August 11, 2025

Links to older versions: May 31, 2025,