"If an altruistic society is equally valued by those of biblical and pagan preferences, then: (Aa,b) - (Aa,p) > (Ee,p). That is, an efficient biblical society is preferred to the outcome of the pagan one. But once again, people would prefer still more (Ae,p) if it were possible and prefer to be pagan egoists among altruists rather than biblicals in this situation. Finally, if the equivalence holds for Christian and biblical preferences, (Aa,c) - (Aa,b) > (Ee,b). That is to say, the outcome of a Christian society is preferred to an inefficient biblical one. Thus, the solution in all these cases consists in diffusing whatever would weaken paganism and would strengthen Christianity - more generally, an ethic of altruism. Notice the immanent retributive justice of the situation: if each chooses to be altruistic in the required ways, then, all things considered, he will be better off. Self-sacrifice pays. But that cannot be used as an incentive for him to change his own preferences. In fact, in the examples, we have up to now assumed that the person does not choose the type of preference ordering that he has over social states. Let us now assume instead that people can choose preferences for social states. (We have seen above that choosing one's own preferences is meaningful both empirically and for important philosophies, and the "religious" connotations of the labels used here remind us that conversions may be examples of this.)"
Serge-Christophe Kolm, Altruism and Efficiency
