Chapter 11 04 28 2013 Political philosophers usually use one of two broad approaches for evaluating the moral or ethical value of adopting a given set of institutions 1 Consequentialist ethics 2 Deontological ethics Consequentialist ethics evaluate actions policies or institutions in regard to the outcomes they produce Deontological ethics evaluate the intrinsic value of actions policies duties or obligations of individuals involved Asks whether the institutions are good fair or just This ch Looks at democracy from a deontological perspective Different counties choose to make trade offs when they decide to adopt democratic institutions PROBLEMS WITH GROUP DECISION MAKING Majority rule is a lot more complicated and less fair than our common sense intuition Allowing majority to decide can be deeply problematic MAJORITY RULE CONDORCET s PARADOX Left wing councilor prefers an increase in spending to current levels of spending and prefers current levels of spending to a decrease I C D Centrist councilor prefers current levels but would prefer a decrease in spending over any increase C D I Right wing councilor prefer a decrease in spending but would prefer break the bank with increase in spending than maintain status quo D I C tournament Since more than 2 alternatives they can vote using Round Robin Round Robin tournament pits each competing alternative against every other alternative an equal number of times in a series of pair wise votes PROBLEM position o No alternative wins most Each win one This does not provide the council with a clear policy direction fails to reach a These three councilors make a group of rational actors that are incapable of making rational decision Rational possesses a complete and transitive preference ordering over a set of outcomes o Complete preference ordering if the actor can compare each pair of elements x and y in a set of feasible outcomes Prefers x to y or y to x Strict preference when x to y x is always better than y Weak preference x is at least as good as y o Transitive preference ordering If for any x y and z in the set of outcomes it is the case that if x is weakly preferred to y and y is weakly preferred to z then it must be the case that x is weakly preferred to z Actors whose preference orderings do not meet these conditions completeness transivity are set to be irrational The outcome however reveals that this set of rational individuals becomes a group that acts like an individual with intransitive preferences Juxtaposition of rational individuals forming a group that behaves irrationally was described as condorcet s paradox Condorcet s paradox illustrates that a group composed of individuals with rational preferences does not necessarily have a rational preferences as a collectively Individual rationality is not sufficient to ensure group rationality Second aspect is that a diff majority supports thw inning alternative This explains that letting majority may not exist until the policy or outcome in each round debate is framed a certain way Condorcet s Paradox There is no majority instead there is a cycle of diff majorities Two reasons why they aren t caught in endless cycle o 1 preference orderings o 2 decision making Preference orderings contests Condorcet winner if it beats all other options in a series of pair wise As a result current levels of spending constitute a stable outcome o Group behaves as if were an individual with transitive and complete preferences Prefers C D D I Point is that majority rule is not necessarily incompatible with rational group preferences C P leads to transitivity and completeness which then leads to some intransitivity and then to preference order and then to Condorcet winner Number of alternatives is small this limit is still small enough that most of the logically possible preference orderings wont lead to An increase in of alternatives also increases the probability of group intransitivity group intransitivity Group intransitivity is unlikely when the set of feasible options is small but almost certain that majority rule applied to a pair wise competition among alternatives will fail to produce a stable outcome circumstance Impossible to say that the majority decides except in restricted THE BORDA COUNT THE REVERSAL PARADOX The borda count asks individuals to rank potential alternatives from their most to least preferred and then assigns numbers to reflect this ranking o Borda count would be indecisive in determining whether to increase decrease or maintain current If you add a fourth councilor choice the borda count can give a 0 to its lease preferred this differentiates the total The fourth alternative acts as an irrelevant alternative MAJORITY RULE WITH AN AGENDA SETTER Imposing a voting agenda such as this turns the voting process into a sequential game with 3 players They first choose between I D and then the winner goes against Deviating from sincere preference in the first round a councillor is able to alter the final outcome from her least preferred to her current spending second best one D vs I if Right wing picks Decrease the D will go against the C then the Left wing and Centralist councillor will both vote for C so right wing should pick increase so that Increase will win against Centralist in the end Which is the right wings second best choice This is an example of strategic or sophisticated vote a vote in which an individual votes in favor of a less preferred option because she believes doing so will ultimately produce more preferred option Alternative agendas can produce very diff outcomes even if we hold all of the actors preferences constant power of the agenda setter RESTRICTIONS ON PREFERENCES THE MEDIAN VOTER THEREOM Utility function is essentially a numerical scaling in which higher numbers stand for higher positions in an individuals preference ordering alternative This indicates how satisfied an individuals are with the available Look at figures in textbook for visual Single peaked preference ordering a utility function that reaches a maximum at some point and slopes away from this maximum on either side such that a movement away from the maximum never raises o As it moves away from the ideal point Median voter theorem states that the ideal point of the median voter will win against any alternative in a pair wise majority rule elections if the of voters is odd voter preferences are single peaked over a single policy dimension and voters vote sincerely Councillors will vote for
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