Discussion of Suzumura’s Paper

Abstract

In his admirable survey of the use and usefulness of interpersonal comparisons in social choice theory, the basic question that Suzumura wishes to address is: ‘How and to what extent can interpersonal welfare comparisons of the extended sympathy type help us resolve the sweeping verdicts of the Arrow possibility theorems?’ Prompted by his analysis, I wish to address the question by looking at the structure of interpersonal comparisons. Suzumura concentrates for the most part on ‘ordinal’ comparisons and I start by looking at the appeal of ‘ordinal’ over ‘cardinal’ comparisons. Then I turn to the question of the existence of ‘objective’ interpersonal comparisons underlying what Suzumura terms ‘subjective’ interpersonal comparisons and I look at the main question posed by Suzumura.