  Expected utility theory has a variety of applications in public policy. In welfare economics, Harsanyi (1953) reasons from expected utility theory to the claim that the most socially just arrangement is the one that maximizes total welfare distributed across a society society.  The theory of expected utility also has more direct applications.  Howard (1980) introduces the concept of a micromort, or a one-in-a-million chance of death, and uses expected utility calculations to gauge which mortality risks are acceptable.  In health policy, quality-adjusted life years, or QALYs, are measures of the expected utilities of different health interventions used to guide health policy (see Weinstein et al 2009). McAskill (2015) uses expected utility theory to address the central question of effective altruism: “How can I do the most good?” (Utilties in these applications are most naturally interpreted as measuring something like happiness or wellbeing, rather than subjective preference satisfaction for an individual agent.)