ABSTRACT
The theory o f optimal economic growth, in the form given it by Frank Ramsey and developed by many others, is thoroughly utilitarian in conception. It is utilitarian in the broad sense that social states are valued as a function o f the utilities o f individuals (individual moments o f time, in this case, since individual persons are usually taken as identical and identically treated) with the possibility that a loss o f utility to one individual (or generation) can be more than offset by an increment to another. It is also utilitarian in the narrow sense that social welfare is (usually 3) defined as the sum o f the utilities o f different individuals or generations.
