Résumé
From the linkage between interpersonally comparable well-being and equity based on the separateness ofpersons, the Ph. D. dissertation introduces a theoretical framework in which ethical preferences are representedby additively separable social welfare functions. The thesis has two goals ; by exhibiting distributive judgmentsnecessarily embodied by the functions that fulfil income transfer principles, the first aim is to provide comparisoncirteria between these functions and those that fulfill utility transfer principles (prioritarian functions). Thesecond aim is to expose a plurality of distributive judgments and of degrees of adhesion they can rise. Forsuch purposes, interpersonal comparability of utility as well as that of ethical values (transformed utilities)are needed. This two-level comparability is granted when inter-household utility ratios are supposed to becomparable. In this framework, the social welfare functions satisfying the Pigou-Dalton principle of incometransfer are not necessarily prioritarian. Moreover, the functions potentially support two meanings of adhesionfor inequality aversion. First, if a function is willing to endorse a inequality-reducing transfer entailing a greaterloss in the transferred benefit to be socially desirable, then it is more inequality averse. This definition ischaracterized by proportional transfer principles well-adapted to ratio-scale comparability of utility. Second,the degree of adhesion for inequality aversion is presented as a downside inequality aversion. Informationalhypothesis rule out parts of the exposition of the plurality of degrees, they put limits to distributive judgmentstoo. By going beyond that, the Ph. D. dissertation studies the interplay between any number of income andutility transfer principles all defined recursively. Finally, four distributive judgments are characterized by thefulfilment and/or non-fulfilment of a set of transfer principles. The willingness to neglect the welfare evolutionof a given proportion of population to take into account that of a minority represents the degree of adherencefor one of those judgments.