Drawback of Social Welfare Function

John Rawls proposed the Rawlsian social welfare function, which computes society’s welfare as the welfare of the worst-off individual.

For example, in a society with three individuals whose utilities are five, three, and one, the Rawlsian function values welfare as one, since this represents the utility of the least well-off member. Any policy that increases this individual’s utility, even slightly, is considered an improvement in social welfare.

This approach reflects egalitarian ideals. Egalitarianism is a philosophy advocating for equal allocation of goods for all individuals, aiming to reduce disparities. 

However, while social welfare functions provide a framework for evaluating societal well-being, they have significant drawbacks.

Social welfare functions depend on subjective judgments about inequality and fairness, which vary among societies and policymakers.

Furthermore, different social welfare functions can lead to vastly different conclusions about what constitutes a desirable outcome. 

Additionally, combining individual utilities poses conceptual challenges because utility is inherently subjective and varies from person to person.