Lars Bergström

Willard Van Orman Quine was born on 25 June 1908 in Akron, Ohio. For many years he was a professor of philosophy at Harvard University and is now emeritus. To some extent his views are connected with the American pragmatist tradition, but a more important influence comes from the empiricist tradition and, in particular, from the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle (see logical positivism). Quine has always remained faithful to the spirit of empiricism, but he has also criticized and revised the empiricist doctrine in important ways. He has published 20 books and numerous articles, and he is perhaps the most influential analytical philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century.

Utilitarianism, as well as many other political and moral doctrines, presupposes that the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons can be solved. Otto Neurath gave a comparatively early (1912) and explicit statement of this problem, and he suggested that it cannot be solved. This may still be the dominant view. It is argued that recent attempts to solve the problem (by e.g. Schick, Rescher, Harsanyi, Brandt, Jeffrey, Arrow, and Hare) are unsatisfactory, but that the oldest suggestion - i.e. the method of minimal units or just-noticeable differences - is acceptable from the point of view of utilitarianism.