scholarly journals A welfarist critique of social choice theory: interpersonal comparisons in the theory of voting

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Aki Lehtinen
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Strategic Voting ◽  
Voting Theory ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Philosophical Critique ◽  
Strategic Behaviour ◽  
Interpersonal Comparisons ◽  
Normative Evaluation

This paper provides a philosophical critique of social choice theory insofar as it deals with the normative evaluation of voting and voting rules. I will argue that the very method of evaluating voting rules in terms of whether they satisfy various conditions is deeply problematic because introducing strategic behaviour leads to a violation of any condition that makes a difference between voting rules. I also argue that it is legitimate to make interpersonal comparisons of utilities in voting theory. Combining a realistic account of voters’ behaviour with a utilitarian evaluation of the outcomes then leads to the judgment that strategic voting is beneficial. If it is, then Arrow's theorem does not have far-reaching consequences for democracy because one of its conditions is not normatively acceptable.

scholarly journals Optimal Voting Rules

1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peyton Young
Keyword(s):  
Maximum Likelihood ◽  
Maximum Likelihood Estimation ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Likelihood Estimation ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Marquis De Condorcet ◽  
Kenneth Arrow

Modern social choice theory, following Kenneth Arrow, treats voting as a method for aggregating diverse preferences and values. An earlier view, initiated by Marquis de Condorcet, is that voting is a method for aggregating information. Voters’ opinions differ because they make errors of judgment; absent these errors they would all agree on the best choice. The goal is to design a voting rule that identifies the best choice with highest probability. This paper examines maximum likelihood estimation. Surprisingly, the optimal rule can also be axiomatized by variations of Arrow's axioms.

scholarly journals Social Contract, Extended Goodness, and Moral Disagreement

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril Hédoin
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Interpersonal Comparisons ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Extended Preferences

This article discusses the role played by interpersonal comparisons (of utility or goodness) in matters of justice and equity. The role of such interpersonal comparisons has initially been made explicit in the context of social choice theory through the concept of extended preferences. Social choice theorists have generally claimed that extended preferences should be taken as being uniform across a population. Three related claims are made within this perspective. First, though it is sometimes opposed to social choice theory, the social contract approach may also consider the possibility of interpersonal comparisons. This is due to the fact that justice principles may be partially justified on a teleological basis. Second, searching for the uniformity of interpersonal comparisons is both hopeless and useless. In particular, moral disagreement does not originate in the absence of such uniformity. Third, interpersonal comparisons should be accounted for both in social choice and social contract theories in terms of sympathetic identification based on reciprocal respect and tolerance, where each person’s conception of the good partially takes care of others’ good. From the moral point of view, any person’s conception of the good should thus be ‘extended’ to others’ personal conceptions. This extension is, however, limited due to the inherent limitations in sympathetic identification and is a long way from guaranteeing the uniformity assumed by social choice theorists.

Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice

1992 ◽  
Vol 40 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 54-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Strategic Voting ◽  
Liberal Conception ◽  
Common Opinion ◽  
Open Discussion

The paper contrasts the liberal conception of democracy as the aggregation of individual preferences with the deliberative conception of democracy as a process of open discussion leading to an agreed judgement on policy. Social choice theory has identified problems – the arbitrariness of decision rules, vulnerability to strategic voting – which are often held to undermine democratic ideals. Contrary to common opinion, I argue that deliberative democracy is less vulnerable to these difficulties than liberal democracy. The process of discussion tends to produce sets of policy preferences that are ‘single peaked’; and within a deliberative setting it may be possible to vary the decision rule according to the nature of the issue to be decided.

SOCIAL CHOICE FOR DATA FUSION

2004 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 619-631
Author(s):  
SHANFENG ZHU ◽  
QIZHI FANG ◽  
WEIMIN ZHENG
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Graph Theoretic ◽  
Graph Theoretic Approach ◽  
New Algorithms

Social choice theory is the study of decision theory on how to aggregate separate preferences into group's rational preference. It has wide applications, especially on the design of voting rules, and brings far-reaching influence on the development of modern political science and welfare economics. With the advent of the information age, social choice theory finds its up-to-date application on designing effective Metasearch engines. Metasearch engines provide effective searching by combining the results of multiple source search engines that make use of diverse models and techniques. In this work, we analyze social choice algorithms in a graph-theoretic approach. In addition to classical social choice algorithms, such as Borda and Condorcet, we study one special type of social choice algorithms, elimination voting, to tackle Metasearch problem. Some new algorithms are proposed and examined in the fusion experiment on TREC data. It shows that these elimination voting algorithms achieve satisfied performance when compared with Borda algorithm.

scholarly journals Shortlisting Rules and Incentives in an End-to-End Model for Participatory Budgeting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Rey ◽  
Ulle Endriss ◽  
Ronald de Haan
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Strategic Behaviour ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
End To End ◽  
Two Stages

We introduce an end-to-end model for participatory budgeting grounded in social choice theory. Our model accounts for the interplay between the two stages commonly encountered in real-life partici- patory budgeting. In the first stage participants pro- pose projects to be shortlisted, while in the second stage they vote on which of the shortlisted projects should be funded. Prior work of a formal nature has focused on analysing the second stage only. We in- troduce several shortlisting rules for the first stage and analyse them in both normative and algorith- mic terms. Our main focus is on the incentives of participants to engage in strategic behaviour during the first stage, in which they need to reason about how their proposals will impact the range of strate- gies available to everyone in the second stage.

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.

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