A Critique of “Utility”

Economists and other social theorists often take the concept of utility for granted. In theory, utility is a measure of value. I will denote the utility of X to Y as U(X, Y) or simply U(X) if Y is clear in the context. For a single individual, we can think of utility as a mathematical function that maps objects or outcomes to points on the continuum. This mapping is called a “utility function”.…