 Which assumption is warranted depends on how welfare is interpreted. If welfare is hedonic utility, which can be experienced only from a first-person perspective, interpersonal comparisons are harder to justify than if welfare is the objective satisfaction of subjective preferences or desires (the desire-satisfaction view) or an objective good or state (an objective-list view). The desire-satisfaction view may render interpersonal comparisons empirically meaningful (by relating the interpersonally significant maximal and minimal levels of welfare for each individual to the attainment of his or her most and least preferred alternatives), but arguably not in a normatively attractive way (Hausman 1995). Different individuals’ most preferred alternatives may differ significantly with respect to how costly they are, for instance due to some individuals’ expensive tastes or adaptive preferences, and it is not obvious whether it is fair to treat a modest individual’s welfare under, say, a diet of cheap food as being equal to the welfare of someone who finds only caviar satisfactory. Resource-based, functioning-based, or primary-goods-based currencies of welfare, by contrast, may allow interpersonal comparisons in a way that is less morally problematic.