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Let’s see how a utilitarian dictator would arrange things for Charles, Elizabeth, and Mary. One heroic assumption that utilitarians make is that you can actually compare happiness and misery across different people. In reality, brain scans are making this easier to do, but it’s still a lot of guesswork. Let’s suppose that this utilitarian dictator has eight oranges to distribute. The table shows the utility that each person receives from their first orange (a lot), but extra oranges give less extra happiness (oranges give “diminishing marginal utility,” in economic jargon).

Utility per orange Charles Elizabeth Mary
1st 2,000 1,200 2,400
2nd 280 1,000 400
3rd 40 800 200
4th 2 600 100

So, if the dictator wants to maximize the sum of Charles’s, Elizabeth’s, and Mary’s utilities, then Charles will get oranges, Elizabeth will get oranges and Mary will get oranges.

Correct! Mary will get the first orange, Charles the second and Elizabeth will get the next four since her marginal utility is higher than the others in each case. Mary would then get the seventh and Charles the eighth. In total, Charles gets 2, Elizabeth gets 4, and Mary 2.
Sorry! Think about how the marginal utilities will determine who gets a particular unit. For example, who will benefit the most when the dictator decides to give away the first orange? To review utilitarianism, please see the section “Poverty, Inequality, and the Distribution of Income?
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      If instead, Mary received 4,000 units of utility from the first orange, how would this change the optimal utilitarian distribution?
      Correct! Mary’s marginal utility from the first orange was already the highest in the group, so increasing it more will not change the initial allocation.
      Sorry! Think about how the marginal utilities will determine who gets a particular unit. For example, who will benefit the most when the dictator decides to give away the first orange? To review utilitarianism, please see the section “Poverty, Inequality, and the Distribution of Income?