Betterness

Betterness is the quality or state of being better, typically used to compare two or more states, options, or outcomes according to a defined standard or baseline. The term, formed from the adjective better plus the suffix -ness, is used across philosophy, economics, political theory, and everyday discourse to denote normative improvement.

In ethics and related fields, betterness is not a single universal measure. It depends on the normative standard chosen: welfare, flourishing, preference satisfaction, justice, or other valued criteria. A state A is considered better than state B if A scores higher on the chosen criterion or combination of criteria. Some theories emphasize Pareto improvements, where A is better if at least one person is better off and no one is worse off; others use cardinal or ordinal scales to compare welfare, utility, or well-being.

Measurement of betterness involves indicators such as health, income, education, capabilities, happiness, and freedom. In welfare economics, greater total welfare or higher average utility can signal betterness, though distributional concerns may complicate straightforward judgments.

In decision theory and artificial intelligence, betterness is often formalized as an objective or utility function used to guide optimization. In moral psychology and political philosophy, judgments of betterness are influenced by cultural values, context, and competing ethical intuitions, leading to divergent conclusions about what counts as better.

Critiques note that betterness is inherently evaluative and contestable, subject to baselines, weighting of criteria, and value judgments. Its application often requires explicit standards and transparent trade-offs to avoid implicit bias.