This article argues that there is a natural solution to carry out interpersonal comparisons of utility when the theory of gambles is supplemented with a group operation of joint receipts. If so, three types of people can exist, and the two types having multiplicative representations of joint receipt have, in contrast to most utility theories, absolute scales of utility. This makes possible, at least in principle, meaningful interpersonal comparisons of utility with desirable properties, thus resolving a long standing philosophical problem and having potentially important implications in economics. Two behavioral criteria are given for the three classes of people. At this point the relative class sizes are unknown.

An outline is given of the behavioral properties (axioms) that have been proposed, and to some extent empirically evaluated, concerning uncertain (often risky) alternatives, the joint receipt of alternatives, and possible linking properties. Recent theoretical work has established the existence of three inherently distinct risk types of people—risk seeking, risk neutral, and risk averse—and so evaluations of theories must take respondent type into account. A program of experiments is sketched making clear exactly which empirical studies need to be repeated with respondents partitioned by risk type.