(Last update: 08/18/00. You are at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA)
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He starts the paper with the notion that "...neoclassical economists have made heroic efforts to accomodate within the confines of the concept of rational utility maximization the fact that individual behavior is significantly affected by moral considerations (p. 159)." The paper argues that monoutility theory (Note: As developed in microeconomic theory, the family of indifference curves/ preference idea from introductory microeconomics classes) is too parsimonious, that we need to consider at least two irreducible utilities, one for pleasure and one for morality (and perhaps more utilities, but he cautions against the anarchy that could arise in a theory with too many). He identifies three kinds of utility commonly considered in standard (micro) economics: 1) utility resulting from pleasure seeking, hedonic origins; 2) same hedonic origin, but now includes utility gained from knowing of the utility gains by others, commonly referred to as interdependent utility; and 3) utility as an attribute, resulting from, as a common denominator for, all quests for satisfaction. He ultimately rejects all three as sufficient to an all encompassing theory.
Perhaps the most intriguing section in the paper addresses the interdependent utility concept. He points out how self-sacrifice, self-denial are incompatible with the concept (p. 162). And, in fact, normal people act differently all the time, by doing the right thing, doing what ought to be done, whether such acts give pleasure or not, whether or not individuals enjoy same. He also makes perhaps the most salient point in the paper, re: expanding the self-interest/ pleasure utility to encompass other people's utility (p. 162): "Once a concept is defined so that it encompasses all incidents that are members of a given category (in the case at hand, the motives for all human activities), it ceases to enhance one's ability to explain. . . the concept ceases to differentiate. . . To the degree that this 'theory' aims to shed light on motivation, it constitutes a conceptual failure, because the purpose of introducing concepts is to call attention to meaningful distinctions." As long as what ever one does is said to simply indicate pleasure came from same, utility theory is nothing more than a tautology. This is clearly the case for interdependent utility theory. (Note: It also challenges developers of Metaeconomics to do so only if it will "call attention to meaningful distinctions").
(Note: I also recall the argument, and I believe it is his, in another paper/book, that using the Interdependent Utility concept/theory also precludes one from staying with the "invisible hand" concept, which undergirds microeconomics theory, in effect, because knowing how much utility someone else is gaining from some action is to make the hand visible, indeed. Please note that metaeconomics preserves the Invisible Hand concept, i.e., one does not have to know the utility gained by someone else before taking economic action, as in interdependent utility theory).
Etzioni concludes (p. 180): "Attempts to accomodate moral behavior within the monoutility theory model strain it." Both pleasure and morals motivate/ drive economic behavior. This paper was a major inspiration in developing Metaeconomics around an individual having at least two utilities (Return/Go to Metaeconomics Inspiration Page).