Do utilitarians consider equity or maximising social welfare

>>1957665

This strikes me as somewhat of a loaded question. Even hard right economics organisations such as the OECD and IMF have come to the conclusion that levels of equity that are too high hurt economic growth.

No one who has a clue what they are talking about would suggest that equity and social welfare have the linear relationship implied by your simplistic question.

>>1957665
A traditional utilitarianism don't give a flying fuck about equality if it doesn't maximize happiness. 20 utils divided between 2 people are better than what you proposed because you have more ultis, but an utilitarian don't care if both get 10 or if one get 19 and the other one 1.

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>>1957704
>This strikes me as somewhat of a loaded question.
How is it a loaded question? He asked about the definition of utilitarianism.

>>1957716

>How is it a loaded question?

I already answered that with the meat of my post that you chose to deliberately completely ignore.

Answer the whole post properly,

You have two entirely separate issues. The level of equality that is good for social welfare - an economics question. And the basics of utilitarian ethics.

Pretending that the answer to one predicates the answer to the other is the very definition of a loaded question.

Really the two different issues should have been posed in two different threads.

>>1957665
The second button. But to answer your question in more depth they would do what it took to maximize welfare, however in practice maximizing it often requires a degree of equity. If you don't keep everyone at some base level of utility you get social instability which would decrease the total.

>>1957704
The button pushing is a hypothetical. I'm not suggesting that analagous situations arise in human conduct on the large or small scale, I'm merely asking about the principal behind it all. I set up my question to purposefully circumvent the fact that equity and social welfare are inherently linked in real life.

>>1957665
The button that gives the net most value will be picked. With button one, only 10 utils are gained, the other button gives 12.