Conclusion

In seeking to deepen her understanding of this subject, the reader will quickly find herself within a wide arena of impressively numerous primary and secondary references on utilitarianism and its criticism.

Unquestionably, utilitarianism has evolved and developed since its appearance in the eighteenth century. In order to retain the essential kernel of the theory - that what is important for society is that individuals have high utility - authors have sought crea­tive responses to the tensions raised by the opposition between positive and normative definitions of utility, and individual and collective definitions of welfare. Utilitarianism has consequently been permanently modified and refined. This constant adaptation has made utilitarianism into the most important ethical theory in the Anglo-Saxon world, and in particular within the evolution of welfare economics.

Whenever the theory has been modified to repel strong criticism, it has increased its theoretical stability while aggravating its practical fragility. It hardly appears possible to answer both the practical and ethical objections raised against the utilitarian - or at least welfarist - bases of welfare economics. The ethical criticism returns when the theory is to be applied and implemented in concrete settings, that is, when the formulation of actual policy recommendations is at stake. Conceived and reconstructed on the bases of the most refined versions of contemporary utilitarianism, a welfarist welfare economics may be bound to remain a beautiful but vain theory, as is presaged by the news of the death of welfare economics. Considering the practical stakes, going beyond utilitarianism, and even beyond welfarism, in welfare economics may now prove to be an absolute necessity.

Antoinette Baujard