  It is well known that ex ante social preferences and expected utility are not
always compatible. In this note, we introduce a novel framework that naturally
separates social preferences from selfish preferences to answer the following
question: What specific forms of social preferences can be accommodated within
the expected utility paradigm? In a departure from existing frameworks, our
framework reveals that ex ante social preferences are not inherently in
conflict with expected utility in games, provided a decision-maker's aversion
to randomization in selfish utility "counterbalances" her social preference for
randomization. We also show that when a player's preferences in both the game
(against another player) and the associated decision problem (against Nature)
conform to expected utility axioms, the permissible range of social preferences
becomes notably restricted. Only under this condition do we reaffirm the
existing literature's key insight regarding the incompatibility of ex ante
inequality aversion with expected utility.
