We study the welfare properties of majority and supermajority rules when voting is voluntary and costly. Voters in the model have private values with differing preference intensities and voting costs. Our model is non-parametric– with only weak assumptions on the distribution of the number of eligible voters, preferences and costs. We show that, in large elections, majority rule is utilitarian ...

Although supporters of vegetarianism (and animals' interests in general) come in many varieties, we may distinguish two groups. First, utilitarians such as Singer base their argument on the suffering that factory farming causes to nonhumans and the absence of comparable benefits to humans. l Second, the animal rights view, as expressed by Regan, extends Kant's respect for persons principle to i...

We provide an axiomatization of expected equally-distributed equivalent-utility social welfare functions in the context of Harsanyi’s impartial observer theorem. For this family of social welfare functions, we show what additional axiom is necessary and suffi cient for the observer to exhibit aversion to ex post inequality. We also relate this axiomatization to our axiomatization in a companion...

Successful negotiators look beyond a purely utilitarian view. We propose a new agent architecture that integrates the utilitarian, information, and semantic views allowing the definition of strategies that take these three dimensions into account. Information-based agency values the information in dialogues in the context of a communication language based on a structured ontology and on the not...

Identifying the onset of symbolic or non-utilitarian behavior remains one of the most important issues in the modern human origins debate, and as such, early evidence requires careful scrutiny. ‘Exotic minerals’ dating to >350 ka are one of several possible indications of hominin non-utilitarian behavior from Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Ecological data suggest an alternate hypothesis that th...

Abstract As augmented reality (AR) technology advances, marketers are eager to adopt the for communication persuade consumers develop favorable attitudes and behaviors toward their products services. This study aims investigate effect of product information (utilitarian vs. hedonic attributes) presence on consumers’ evaluation in AR. Through a quasi experiment, this demonstrates how attribute A...