Assuming there is some way of divining the utility of an individual I think this can be viewed from the lens of a similar problem where you have many agents and you want to combine their utility in some way there is the possibility of just maximizing the average utility vs maximizing the median utility.
The benefits of maximizing the median utility is that the designer is most likely to be part of the median and maybe those that are in the median would have higher utility than those in the average utility maximize world but then this might come at the expense of those who's utility are in the tails of the distribution.
The benefits of maximizing the average utility is that the benefits are more spread out and you don't get such a polarizing effect that you would get from median utility. I expect that the result would be a world that is "meh" one that is not particularly great but not bad either.
This is different than CEV in that CEV maximizes non-controversial utilities but is indifferent otherwise.
Assuming there is some way of divining the utility of an individual I think this can be viewed from the lens of a similar problem where you have many agents and you want to combine their utility in some way there is the possibility of just maximizing the average utility vs maximizing the median utility.
The benefits of maximizing the median utility is that the designer is most likely to be part of the median and maybe those that are in the median would have higher utility than those in the average utility maximize world but then this might come at the expense of those who's utility are in the tails of the distribution.
The benefits of maximizing the average utility is that the benefits are more spread out and you don't get such a polarizing effect that you would get from median utility. I expect that the result would be a world that is "meh" one that is not particularly great but not bad either.
This is different than CEV in that CEV maximizes non-controversial utilities but is indifferent otherwise.