Political philosophers usually use one of two broad approaches for evaluating the moral or ethical value of adopting a given set of institutions1) Consequentialist ethics2) Deontological ethicsConsequentialist 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 institutionsPROBLEMS 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 PARADOXLeft wing councilor: prefers an increase in spending to current levels of spending, and prefers current levels of spending to a decrease. I > C >DCentrist councilor: prefers current levels, but would prefer a decrease in spending over any increase. C > D > IRight wing councilor: prefer a decrease in spending but would prefer “break the bank” with increase in spending, than maintain status quo. D > I > CSince more than 2 alternatives they can vote using: Round Robin tournament.Round- Robin tournament- pits each competing alternative against every other alternative an equal number of times in a series of pair-wise votes.PROBLEM:No alternative wins most. Each win one. This does not provide the council with a clear policy direction & fails to reach a position.These three councilors make a group of rational actors that are incapable of making rational decisionRational: possesses a complete and transitive preference ordering over a set of outcomes.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 yWeak preference: x is at least as good as y.Transitive preference orderingIf 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 or outcome in each round.This explains that letting majority may not exist until the policy 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:1) preference orderings2) decision-makingPreference orderings:Condorcet winner: if it beats all other options in a series of pair-wise contests.As a result, current levels of spending constitute a stable outcome.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 group intransitivity.An increase in # of alternatives also increases the probability of 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.*Impossible to say that the majority “decides” except in restricted circumstance.THE BORDA COUNT & THE REVERSAL PARADOXThe borda count asks individuals to rank potential alternatives from their most to least preferred and then assigns numbers to reflect this ranking.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 SETTERImposing 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 current spending.*Deviating from sincere preference in the first round, a councillor, is able to alter the final outcome from her least preferred to her 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 THEREOMUtility function: is essentially a numerical scaling in which higher numbers stand for higher positions in an individuals preference ordering.*This indicates how satisfied an individuals are with the available alternative.Look at figures in textbook for visualSingle-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 raisesAs it moves away from the ideal pointMedian 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
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