On Jan 13, 2010, at 8:26 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
On Jan 13, 2010, at 5:02 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On Jan 13, 2010, at 7:57 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
This seems to me to be a claim that is at best not self-evident
(in the sense that Pareto or anti-dictatorship, say, are). While
I'm not a fan of cardinal-utility voting systems, it seems
entirely possible to make a utility argument or rationale against
the *necessity* of electing the CW in all cases.
That is, as a thought experiment, if we could somehow divine a
workable electorate-wide utility function, it's at least arguable
that the utility winner would legitimately trump the Condorcet
winner, if different, while you couldn't make a similar argument
wrt Pareto or dictatorship.
how would you define that "utility function" metric in a
democracy? would the candidates arm-wrestle? take a written
exam? flip a coin? what, other than majority preference of the
electorate, can be such a metric in a democracy?
I don't think you can, and that's a big problem for Range, it seem
to me.
But we're talking about utility for the voter, not arm-strength of
the candidates.
I guess I didn't understand that the utility function was for the
individual voter. Yes, that *is* Range voting. And if the value is
restricted to binary, it's Approval voting. Especially if you add up
the values of a candidate for all voters (maybe we should add their
square-roots, I dunno).
we have a choice of candidates. only one candidate can be elected
(single winner). the "best" candidate means that this candidate is
"better" than any other candidate. if we define "better than the
other candidate" as "preferred by more voters than prefer the other
candidate" (it's a dichotomy, the alternative is to give it to the
*less* preferred candidate, unless we make them arm wrestle, or take
a written exam or something other criterion without votes), then the
Condorcet candidate is better than every other candidate.
I guess I still haven't heard a good justification for why the
Condorcet winner, if one exists, should *ever* be rejected as the
elected winner.
--
r b-j [email protected]
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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