Theories of justice: Utilitarianism, impracticable distributive metric?

Abstract

This work aims not only to reconstruct the essential principles of classical utilitarianism with respect to its metric proposal of distribution of goods, but also to present some critical references on this proposal.
Indeed, utilitarianism, as a philosophical doctrine, is presented not only as a consequentialist and welfare suggestion but also as a distributive proposal that proclaims general happiness as a basic principle.
Its theoretical statements and promises of simple application make it an attractive doctrine to think about the distribution of social goods. However, and for these reasons, it is possible to ask ourselves: is utilitarianism an impracticable distributive metric?
In order to answer this, it will be presented, in the first place, to classical utilitarianism in its general principles. This will allow us to understand their distributive proposal of social goods.
From here we can indicate some objections that have arisen from other theoretical proposals referring to the distributive metric of social goods. John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Will Kymlicka and Luciano Venezia will be these theorists.
Thus we can not only think about the distributive metric of utilitarianism within a detailed analysis that rescues and indicates some of its own shortcomings but also indicate other possible distributional proposals of social goods.