Are people’s ethical views informative about what is actually ethical? We show that, when the social preference relation is Paretian, it must closely mirror people’s ethical views. In particular, people’s aversion to income inequality among strangers places tight bounds on the admissible inequality attitudes of the social welfare function. Our results also suggest a new rationale for paternalism: if people are paternalistic about the choices of others, then the social welfare function must be paternalistic as well.
Eden et al. (Fri,) studied this question.