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Abstract
This paper explores the question whether utilitarianism is compatible with the autonomy of the moral agent. The paper begins by considering Bernard Williams' famous complaint that utilitarianism cannot do justice to the personal projects and commitments constitutive of character. Recent work (by Peter Railton among others) has established that a utilitarian agent need not be free of such personal projects and commitments, and could even affirm them morally at the level of second"order reflection. But a different and more subtle problem confronts this approach: the use of utilitarian principles to justify the cultivation of personal projects and attachments undermines the autonomy to support this objection, according to which autonomy is a matter of acting in a way one can reflectively endorse.

The literature of traditional inventory analysis contains primarily cost minimisation models. These models avoid the interface of marketing and finance with logistics through constraints and a combined logistics/marketing/finance objective of maximising firm's profit. Under certain conditions, the cost minimisation models will give the same results as the profit maximising results; however, if such conditions do not hold, the cost minimisation models may give results which are different from the profit maximising results. Such is the case when sales lot size for batch sales) decisions are analysed within a cost minimising framework. A proper framework based on discounted cash flow analysis as prescribed by finance theory is developed in this article. A numerical illustration is also presented.

On the basis of these findings it would appear that there is an urgent need for continuing study of prevocational evaluation units. If there is a conceptual framework within which we are to operate, what is it and where is it when we attempt to define our everyday procedures? What methodology is existent in our limited staffs and physical plants which permits us to carry out forty-five more or less different functions? On what validation studies does our confidence in our procedures and findings rest? Do we really mean to suggest, as is indicated by some of the terminology, that such units have three valid functions? Or does the term "evaluation" have so little significance that it often includes the functions of "treatment" and "training"? This is not the time to attempt to unify our theories and methods; but surely it must be the time for continuing agency soul searching. The justification of this expensive service in the future will have to be based on more than a sincere desire to do something for our clients, and piecemeal evidence that it is a "worthwhile service" in the opinion of vocational rehabilitation personnel.