Thomas Kroedel has recently proposed an interesting Pareto-style condition on permissible belief. Despite the condition’s initial plausibility, this paper aims at providing a counterexample to it. The example is based on the view that a proper condition on permissible belief should not give permission to believe a proposition that undermines one’s belief system or whose epistemic standing decreases in the light of one’s de facto beliefs.

Thomas Kroedel has recently proposed an interesting Pareto-style condition on permissible belief. Despite the condition’s initial plausibility, this paper aims at providing a counterexample to it. The example is based on the view that a proper condition on permissible belief should not give permission to believe a proposition that undermines one’s belief system or whose epistemic standing decreases in the light of one’s de facto beliefs.

This paper examines social choice theory with the strong Pareto principle. The notion of conditional decisiveness is introduced to clarify the underlying power structure behind strongly Paretian aggregation rules satisfying binary independence. We discuss the various degrees of social rationality: transitivity, semi-transitivity, the interval-order property, quasi-transitivity, and acyclicity.

One of the more obscure arguments for Rawls’ difference principle dubbed ‘the Pareto argument for inequality’ has been criticised by G. A. Cohen (1995, 2008) as being inconsistent. In this paper, we examine and clarify the Pareto argument in detail and argue (1) that justification for the Pareto principles derives from rational selfinterest and thus the Pareto principles ought to be understood as conditions of individual rationality, (2) that the Pareto argument is not inconsistent, (...) contra Cohen, and (3) that the kind of bargaining model required to arrive at the particular unequal distribution that the difference principle picks out is a model that is not based on bargaining according to one’s threat advantage. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship among the weak Pareto principle, the strong Pareto principle, and positive responsiveness in the context of voting. First, it is shown that under a mild domain condition, if an anonymous and neutral collective choice rule (CCR) is complete and transitive, then the weak Pareto principle and the strong Pareto principle are equivalent. Next, it is shown that under another mild domain condition, if a neutral CCR is transitive, then the strong (...) class='Hi'>Pareto principle and positive responsiveness are equivalent. By applying these results, we obtain a new characterization of the method of majority decision. (shrink)

We consider situations of multiple referendum: finitely many yes-or-no issues have to be socially assessed from a set of approval ballots, where voters approve as many issues as they want. Each approval ballot is extended to a complete preorder over the set of outcomes by means of a preference extension. We characterize, under a mild richness condition, the largest domain of top-consistent and separable preference extensions for which issue-wise majority voting is Pareto efficient, i.e., always yields out a (...) class='Hi'>Pareto-optimal outcome. Top-consistency means that voters’ ballots are their unique most preferred outcome. It appears that the size of this domain becomes negligible relative to the size of the full domain as the number of issues increases. (shrink)

Florida International University, USA edwardj{at}fiu.edu ' + u + '@ ' + d + ' '/ /- -> Several authors have analyzed the optimal k -majority rule based on a variety of criteria. Buchanan and Tullock argued that, in constitutional settings, the criterion should be that all changes meet the Pareto criterion; otherwise the status quo should be preferred. They then asserted that unanimity rule would be the preferred voting rule in this setting. In parliamentary settings, they claimed that (...) a near majority rule would be preferred because it minimizes the sum of decision costs and external costs. This article investigates both claims in an N -voter, two-alternative setting. We show the conditions under which unanimity rule is less likely to select BT preferred alternatives than other k -majority rules and prove that the difference in performance can be negligible when N is large and certain weak conditions are met. Furthermore, if we define external costs as the expected number of losers from a BT-inferior vote, then external costs become negligible for a range of supermajority rules. This implies that unanimity rule and a range of supermajority rules should be equally preferred when decision costs are added. Finally, we show that the external cost function can actually increase for certain populations. Many of the broader conclusions should also hold for multiple alternatives. Key Words: constitutional design • Pareto criterion • external costs • social contract. (shrink)

In economic analysis, it is usually assumed that each individuals well-being (mental welfare) depends on her or his own resources (material welfare). A typology is provided of the ways in which one persons well-being may depend on the material resources of other persons. When such dependencies are taken into account, standard Paretian analysis of welfare needs to be modified. Pareto efficiency on the level of material resources need not coincide with Pareto efficiency on the level of well-being. A (...) change in economic conditions that is Pareto efficient in the standard sense, i.e., with respect to material resources, may nevertheless sacrifice one persons well-being to that of another. It is shown that under plausible assumptions, Pareto efficiency on the level of well-being may require the reduction of inequality on the level of material resources. (shrink)

In this paper, the independence of irrelevant alternatives and the Pareto principle are simultaneously weakened in the Arrovian framework of social choice. Moreover, we also relax transitivity of social preferences. We show that impossibility remains under weaker versions of Arrow’s original conditions. Our results complement the recent work by Coban and Sanver (Soc Choice Welf 43(4):953–961, 2014).

This paper shows that, if the performance of the economy is independent of the identities of individuals, then many welfare criteria yield sets of optimal social states that are equal to the Pareto optimal set. This result is proved for income distributions and extended to more general social choice problems. If the independence condition holds, then the set of optimal states is invariant to the adoption of an anonymity axiom, and to the utility information available.

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests the existence of a Paradox of Choice, whereby a larger choice set leads to a lower expected payoff to the decisionmaker. These empirical findings contradict traditional choice-theoretic results in microeconomics and even social psychology, suggesting profound yet unexplained aspects of choice settings/behavior. The Paradox remains largely as a theoretically-rootless empirical phenomenon. We neither understand the mechanisms and conditions that generate it, nor whether the Paradox stems from choice behavior, choice setting, or both. (...) We present a general search model of consumer choice under incomplete information to examine the theoretical existence and conditions for the Paradox. The model departs from traditional microeconomic choice theory in assuming no “cognitive free lunches.” Search and evaluative efforts require time, focus, and opportunity cost in the model, as in real life. The model shows that conditions for Paradox readily exist, diminishing returns to potential value of the choice in choice set size is a necessary condition for a Paradox outcome, that a Paradox outcome can occur with or without a “choice overload” response by the decisionmaker, and that avoidance of a Paradox outcome is an impossibility in some choice settings (primitive to setting regardless of choice behavior). Lastly, we develop a pareto-improving choice set reduction algorithm that eliminates weakly dominated choice set elements and presents the restricted choice set to the decisionmaker. As such, it is shown that the algorithm acts to treat or mitigate the Paradox of Choice, as well as to pareto-improve choice-supporting evaluation more generally. Like established AI recommender systems, the novel algorithm filters choices. In the present case, the filtering is based upon identification of weakly dominated choice set elements. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the notion of a minimal belief change that incorporates new information. I apply the fundamental decision-theoretic principle of Pareto-optimality to derive a notion of minimal belief change, for two different representations of belief: First, for beliefs represented by a theory – a deductively closed set of sentences or propositions – and second for beliefs represented by an axiomatic base for a theory. Three postulates exactly characterize Pareto-minimal revisions of theories, yielding a weaker set of constraints (...) than the standard AGM postulates. The Levi identity characterizes Pareto-minimal revisions of belief bases: a change of belief base is Pareto-minimal if and only if the change satisfies the Levi identity (for “maxichoice” contraction operators). Thus for belief bases, Pareto-minimality imposes constraints that the AGM postulates do not. The Ramsey test is a well-known way of establishing connections between belief revision postulates and axioms for conditionals (“if p, then q”). Pareto-minimal theory change corresponds exactly to three characteristic axioms of counterfactual systems: a theory revision operator that satisfies the Ramsey test validates these axioms if and only if the revision operator is Pareto-minimal. (shrink)

v. 1. Lo sviluppo del capitalismo (1872-1895).--v. 2. Reazione, liberta, fascismo (1896-1923).

We investigate the social choice implications of what we call "the proximity condition". Loosely speaking, this condition says that whenever a profile moves "closer" to some individual's point of view, then the social choice cannot move "further away" from this individual's point of view. We apply this idea in two settings: merging functions and preference aggregation. The precise formulation of the proximity condition depends on the setting. First, restricting attention to merging functions that are interval scale invariant, we prove that (...) the only functions that satisfy proximity are dictatorships. Second, we prove that the only social welfare functions that satisfy proximity and a version of the Pareto criterion are dictatorships. We conclude that either proximity is not an attractive normative requirement after all, or we must give up some other social choice condition. Another possibility is that our normative intuition about proximity needs to be codified using different axioms. (shrink)

Schwartz [A Procedural Condition Necessary and Sufficient for Cyclic Social Preference, J. Econ. Theory 137 (2007), 688–695] provides a generalization of the voting paradox by using the impotence‐partition condition. This paper aims to clarify his result by providing several remarks. We show that a main result of Schwartz can be strengthened by replacing strong Pareto by weak Pareto. We also discuss how the impotence partition is related to the standard concept of decisiveness, which is widely employed in the (...) literature on social choice. (shrink)

Vilfredo Pareto's Manual of Political Economy is a 'classic' study in the history of economic thought. It is not only one of the leading works in the Lausanne tradition of economics, which centres on the theory of general equilibrium, it is one of the most important books in the history of neoclassical economics. This 'critical edition' of Pareto's Manual of Political Economy is a very significant work for two main reasons. First, it is the only variorum translation of (...) the 1906 Italian language Manuale di Economia Politica and the 1909 French language Manuel d'Économie Politique. Second, it includes extensive contributions by the editors, all of whom are authorities on the work of Pareto. It total, the editorial contribution are around two hundred pages and range from brief annotations, to extended editors' notes and detailed notes on the 1909 mathematical appendix. (shrink)

This paper defends the permissibility solution to the lottery paradox against an objection by Anna-Maria Asunta Eder. Eder argues that the permissibility solution should also be applicable to the preface paradox, but conflicts with a plausible principle about epistemic permissions when so applied. This paper replies by first criticizing Eder’s considerations in defense of her principle; in particular, it argues that the plausibility of her principle is to a large extent parasitic on the spurious plausibility of the principle of factual (...) detachment. The paper then presents a direct argument against Eder’s principle, which shows that her principle conflicts with a Pareto-style condition on permissible belief. (shrink)

Social robotics has a high disruptive potential, for it expands the field of application of intelligent technology to practical contexts of a relational nature. Due to their capacity to “intersubjectively” interact with people, social robots can take over new roles in our daily activities, multiplying the ethical implications of intelligent robotics. In this paper, we offer some preliminary considerations for the ethical reflection on social robotics, so that to clarify how to correctly orient the critical-normative thinking in this arduous task. (...) We defend the ‘being perspective’ and its linked categories of ‘teleology’ and ‘interest’ as the ones from which to articulate the reflection. We argue that attending primarily to the ‘being’, before the ‘doing’, of robots allow us to correctly approach the core phenomenon of all ethical concerns on social robotics, avoiding the reductionisms in the ethical gaze to which the latter may lead. (shrink)

If the specificity of liberal democracy, as a regime, is to base power on consent then political violence appears to contradict the typical self-understanding of the societies whose functioning it informs. A justification of the motives which may call for such violence thus becomes both a political and a philosophical problem when such a regime faces the necessity to resort to violent means of action. Reaching intellectual maturity during the 30’s and the 40’s, while democratic states were faltering in Europe, (...) Raymond Aron had an acute understanding of this issue. An inquiry into Aron’s publications from that period will help us identify what kind of moral and cultural foundations they need to have if they are not to collapse during wartime. These texts also shed an original light on his post-war political thought and may lead us to reconsider some dominant contemporary interpretations of his work as revolving around the Kantian–Machiavellian antinomy. When compared to either element of this antinomy, Aron’s conception of agency, its emphasis on moral obligations, virtues and moral character, starts bearing more resemblance to the political science of Aristotle than to modern social or political science. (shrink)

The work of scientists and doctors in advancing genetic research and its applications has been accompanied by plenty of discussion in the popular press—from Good Housekeeping and Forbes to Ms. and the Congressional Record—about such ...

In the last third of the twentieth century, humanists and social scientists argued that attention to genetics would heighten already‐existing genetic determinism, which in turn would intensify negative social outcomes, especially sexism, racism, ableism, and harshness to criminals. They assumed that laypeople are at risk of becoming genetic essentialists. I will call this the “laypeople are genetic essentialists model.” This model has not accurately predicted psychosocial impacts of findings from genetics research. I will be arguing that the failure of the (...) model can be traced to its inability to recognize the complexity of laypeople’s attitudes; its incorrect theory of how beliefs, attitudes, and discourse function; and its blindness to how academics’ own interests can override the available evidence. More specifically, I suggest that the substantial data about laypeople’s deployment of genetics supports what I will call the “laypeople are strategic essentialists model” better than the “laypeople are genetic essentialists model.” The strategic essentialists model holds that people tend to store multiple categories, including multiple causal forces, that they deploy “strategically” to serve context‐dependent goals. It will be difficult for academics to reorient ourselves to model laypeople as sophisticated strategic essentialists rather than as naïve genetic essentialists. Perhaps a little shift, however, will be of value. (shrink)

In the face of documented difficulties in the public understanding of genetics, new metaphors have been suggested. The language of information coding and processing has become deeply entrenched in the public representation of genetics, and some critics have found fault in the blueprint metaphor, a variant of the dominant theme. They have offered the language of the recipe as a preferable metaphor. The metaphors of the blueprint and the recipe are compared in respect to their deterministic implications and other associations. (...) The likelihood of the recipe metaphor framing cognition in more useful ways is called into question. (shrink)

Anorexia nervosa remains an enigma among Western cultures. Various causal explanations have been offered, encompassing biological, psychological, and sociocultural models. These explanations, however, focus on the immediate or proximal mechanisms of causation. A more thorough understanding of anorexia nervosa can be achieved by understanding the relationship between these factors and ultimate causation, the level of explanation which deals with individual reproductive fitness. This paper reviews the biological, psychological, sociocultural, and evolutionary models and indicates a necessary synthesis between proximate and ultimate (...) levels of causation in examining the anorexia nervosa puzzle. (shrink)

People respond to metaphors as much with regard to the emotions that they generate as to their referential, comparative contents. Interviews with non-geneticists about preferred metaphors for gene-environment interaction that illustrate this tendency are reported. These interviews also reveal the dynamic tendency of such emotional responses. A second set of interviews shows that lay people may preferentially use a metaphor of "virus" or "disease" for talking about genes, as opposed to the coding metaphors transmitted through the mass media and reportedly (...) preferred by geneticists. An explanation based on the differently situated emotions of these groups is proposed. It is proposed that the prominence of emotions in responding to genetics indicates the importance of incorporating analyses of emotions instead of simple principles into policy formulation about genetics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT “Lockdown!” has articulated our collective and individual fear response to the novel coronavirus. Two regnant specialized discourses fostered by the academy—science and ideology critique—could not redirect this inadequate response nor generate their own adequately broad and focused social responses. This suggests the desirability of the academy adding phronesis as a goal for its pedagogical practices.

The human propensity for casting our social worlds as "us against them" is perhaps the primary impediment to deep and broadly inclusive understandings of the workings of rhetoric. Many decades ago, Kenneth Burke assailed that barrier with regard to Adolf Hitler. Surrounded by the satisfactions of vituperation against the leader of one of the world's most heinous social movements, Burke begged his readers to make space for understanding how Hitler's rhetoric brought about what it did. Philippe-Joseph Salazar's Words Are Weapons (...) makes a similar contribution for our era. He asks us to resist the gratifications generated by dismissing as "Islamaphobic" any critical analysis of what he calls "caliphal"... (shrink)