Rawlsian equity and generalised utilitarianism with an infinite population (*)
This note provides axiomatizations of the discounting utilitarian rule and the Rawlsian infimum rule for an infinite setting. Contrary to the finite case, an objective function cannot at the same time satisfy anonymity and the strong Pareto principle. The Rawlsian rule is based on anonymity, and the discounting rule on the strong Pareto axiom. Furthermore, the infimum rule is compatible with an infinite version of ordinal level comparability, and the discounting rule with cardinal unit comparability.