It is not valid, then, to
determine the welfare of the majority on the basis of the welfare of individuals. It would be
easy to exaggerate the importance of this argument. It is a strictly formal proof, and there
is no obvious reason why policies and programmes should have to be decided with any
degree of logical consistency. Its main value is to stress that 'society' cannot be seen simply
as an aggregation of individuals, and that it is arguable whether social welfare can actually
be seen as an aggregate interest - the sum of individual welfares - at all.