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Ethical Decision Rules for Uncertain Voters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Norman Schofield
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Extract

In this paper we extend the probability model of voting which was first considered by Rae. We consider a voting body presented with issues on which decisions have to be made, and we seek the decision rule which maximizes in some sense the correspondence between individual preferences and the collective decisions of the voting body.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 193 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 Rae, Douglas, ‘Decision Rules and Individual Values in Constitutional Choice’, The American Political Science Review, LXIII (1969), 40–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Harsanyi, John C., ‘Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility’, Journal of Political Economy, 63 (1955), 309–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See page 316. For a discussion of Harsanyi's concept of ‘impersonality’ see Sen, Amartya, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1970)Google Scholar, particularly Chapter 9, ‘Impersonality and Expected Utility Maximization’.

3 Pattanaik, Prasanta, ‘Risk, Impersonality and the Social Welfare Function’, Journal of Political Economy, 76 (1968), 1152–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Pattanaik, Prasanta, Voting and Collective, Choice (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971)Google Scholar, Chapter IX, ‘Intensity of Individual Preferences’.

4 Badger, Wade W., ‘Political Individualism, Positional Preferences and Optimal Decision Rules’, in Niemi, Richard and Weisberg, Herbert, eds., Probability Models of Collective Decision Making (Columbus: Charles E. Merril, forthcoming, 1971).Google Scholar

5 Taylor, Michael, ‘Proof of a Theorem on Majority Rule’, Behavioral Science, 14 (1969), 228–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Richard Curtis, ‘Decision Rules and Collective Values in Constitutional Choice’ in Niemi and Weisberg, eds., Probability Models of Collective Decision Making.