Liberty, Preference, and Choice

1985 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Sugden
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Almost All

Ever since its first publication in 1970, Amartya Sen's paper “The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal” (reprinted in Sen, 1982) has served as the starting point for almost all discussions of liberty in social choice theory. However, a number of people, myself included, have argued that Sen's theorem rests on a misleading characterization of liberty (Nozick, 1974, pp. 164–166; Bernholz, 1974; Sugden, 1978, 1981, pp. 193–198; Garden-fors, 1981; Levi, 1982). In a recent paper, addressed to a philosophical audience, Sen (1983) has provided a careful defence of his theorem against this charge. I shall argue that this defence does not work.

scholarly journals Measuring Fairness, Inequality, and Big Data: Social Choice Since Arrow

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 435-460
Author(s):  
John W. Patty ◽  
Elizabeth Maggie Penn
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Impossibility Theorem ◽  
Axiomatic Method ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Fundamental Interest ◽  
Starting Point

Kenneth J. Arrow was one of the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century, and his “impossibility theorem” is arguably the starting point of modern, axiomatic social choice theory. In this review, we begin with a brief discussion of Arrow's theorem and subsequent work that extended the result. We then discuss its implications for voting and constitutional systems, including a number of seminal results—both positive and negative—that characterize what such systems can accomplish and why. We then depart from this narrow interpretation of the result to consider more varied institutional design questions such as apportionment and geographical districting. Following this, we address the theorem's implications for measurement of concepts of fundamental interest to political science such as justice and inequality. Finally, we address current work applying social choice concepts and the axiomatic method to data analysis more generally.

Bargaining in Legislatures

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1181-1206 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Baron ◽  
John A. Ferejohn
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Free Model ◽  
Sequential Nature ◽  
Choice Literature ◽  
Formal Rules

Bargaining in legislatures is conducted according to formal rules specifying who may make proposals and how they will be decided. Legislative outcomes depend on those rules and on the structure of the legislature. Although the social choice literature provides theories about voting equilibria, it does not endogenize the formation of the agenda on which the voting is based and rarely takes into account the institutional structure found in legislatures. In our theory members of the legislature act noncooperatively in choosing strategies to serve their own districts, explicitly taking into account the strategies members adopt in response to the sequential nature of proposal making and voting. The model permits the characterization of a legislative equilibrium reflecting the structure of the legislature and also allows consideration of the choice of elements of that structure in a context in which the standard, institution-free model of social choice theory yields no equilibrium.

MEASURING GROUP FITNESS IN A BIOLOGICAL HIERARCHY: AN AXIOMATIC SOCIAL CHOICE APPROACH

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Bossert ◽  
Chloe X. Qi ◽  
John A. Weymark
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Philosophy Of Biology ◽  
Axiomatic Characterization ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Group Fitness ◽  
Biological Hierarchy ◽  
Choice Approach

This article illustrates how axiomatic social choice theory can be used in the evaluation of measures of group fitness for a biological hierarchy, thereby contributing to the dialogue between the philosophy of biology and social choice theory. It provides an axiomatic characterization of the ordering underlying the Michod–Viossat–Solari–Hurand–Nedelcu index of group fitness for a multicellular organism. The MVSHN index has been used to analyse the germ-soma specialization and the fitness decoupling between the cell and organism levels that takes place during the evolutionary transition to multicellularity. It is argued that some of the axioms satisfied by the MVSHN group fitness ordering are not appropriate for all stages in this transition.

Precursors to Public Choice

2019 ◽  
pp. 796-816
Author(s):  
Iain McLean
Keyword(s):  
Public Choice ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mathematical Skill ◽  
The Many ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter reviews the many appearances, disappearances, and reappearances of axiomatic thought about social choice and elections since the era of ancient Greek democracy. Social choice is linked to the wider public-choice movement because both are theories of agency. Thus, just as the first public-choice theorists include Hobbes, Hume, and Madison, so the first social-choice theorists include Pliny, Llull, and Cusanus. The social-choice theory of agency appears in many strands. The most important of these are binary vs. nonbinary choice; aggregation of judgement vs. aggregation of opinion; and selection of one person vs. selection of many people. The development of social choice required both a public-choice mindset and mathematical skill.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document