Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is one of many political philosophy’s that deal with how a government should approach inequality in a society. It was originally founded by British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart. It stems from the notion of utility.
Utility is the level of satisfaction a person receives from his or her circumstance. For utilitarian’s, they believe that the goal of the government is to maximize the utility of everyone in society.
A utilitarian's case for redistribution of income comes from something called diminishing marginal utility, which is the notion that an extra amount of income given to a poorer person would raise overall utility, rather than giving it to a richer person.
Example: Dieter earns €80,000 Ernst earns €20,000. Which one would have the higher utility?
€100 is taken from Dieter and given to Ernst. Dieter's utility is reduced while Ernst utility rises.
However since Dieter's utility was much higher to begin with, Ernst increase in utility is higher
than by what Dieter's falls. Therefore total utility has been increased!
However the utilitarian argument is not perfect as in the above case such a redistribution of income from a person with a higher income to a person of low income it would give both parties less incentive to work hard.