SOCIAL ETHICS AND NORMATIVE ECONOMICS - DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE - THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS AND EMPIRICAL-FINDINGS

The first part of this paper discusses various theories of distributiv e justice such as utilitarianism, Rawlsianism, approaches within coope rative bargaining theory, and the notion of fair allocations. The focu s is on the different informational bases used in these solution conce pts. The second part reports some results from empirical investigation s where a particular distributive problem had to be solved by undergra duate students of economics and business administration. The question we are posing is whether the respondents' behaviour can, to some exten t at least, be rationalized in terms of utilitarian ethics.