Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T07:26:57.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

AGGREGATING MORAL PREFERENCES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2016

Matthew D. Adler
Matthew D. Adler*
Affiliation:
Duke Law School, 210 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708, USA. Email: [email protected]. URL: https://law.duke.edu/fac/adler/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Preference-aggregation problems arise in various contexts. One such context, little explored by social choice theorists, is metaethical. ‘Ideal-advisor’ accounts, which have played a major role in metaethics, propose that moral facts are constituted by the idealized preferences of a community of advisors. Such accounts give rise to a preference-aggregation problem: namely, aggregating the advisors’ moral preferences. Do we have reason to believe that the advisors, albeit idealized, can still diverge in their rankings of a given set of alternatives? If so, what are the moral facts (in particular, the comparative moral goodness of the alternatives) when the advisors do diverge? These questions are investigated here using the tools of Arrovian social choice theory.

Keywords

metaethicsideal advisorpreference aggregationsocial choicemoral preferences
Type
Symposium on Rational Choice and Philosophy
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , July 2016 , pp. 283 - 321
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adler, M.D. 2012. Well-Being and Fair Distribution: Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Adler, M.D. 2016. Extended preferences. In The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy, ed. Adler, M. D. and Fleurbaey, M.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arrow, K. J. 1951. Social Choice and Individual Values. New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. J. 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd edn. New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. J., Sen, A. K. and Suzumura, K., eds. 2002. Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 1. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. J., Sen, A. and Suzumura, K., eds. 2010. Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 2. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Bossert, W. and Weymark, J. A.. 2004. Utility in social choice. In Handbook of Utility Theory, ed. Barberà, S., Hammond, P. J. and Seidl, C., vol. 2 (Extensions), 1099–1177. Boston: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Brams, S. J. and Fishburn, P. C.. 2002. Voting procedures. In Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, ed. Arrow, K. J., Sen, A. K. and Suzumura, K., vol. 1, 173–236. Amsterdam: North-Holland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, R. B. 1955. The definition of an ‘ideal observer’ theory in ethics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15: 407–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, R. B. 1979. A Theory of the Good and the Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 1991. Weighing Goods: Equality, Uncertainty, and Time. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Campbell, D. E. and Kelly, J. S.. 2002. Impossibility theorems in the Arrovian framework. In Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, ed. , K. J.Arrow, Sen, A. K. and , K.Suzumura, vol. 1, 35–94. Amsterdam: North-Holland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Divers, J. 2002. Possible Worlds. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Egan, A. and Weatherson, B., eds. 2011. Epistemic Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Firth, R. 1952. Ethical absolutism and the ideal observer. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12: 317–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. and Mongin, P.. 2005. The news of the death of welfare economics is greatly exaggerated. Social Choice and Welfare 25: 381–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaertner, W. 2002. Domain restrictions. In Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, ed. Arrow, K. J., Sen, A. K. and Suzumura, K., vol. 1, 131–167. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Gaertner, W. 2009. A Primer in Social Choice Theory, Rev. edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gendler, T. S. and Hawthorne, J., eds. 2002. Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harman, G. and Thomson, J. J.. 1996. Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hooker, B. and Streumer, B.. 2004. Procedural and substantive practical rationality. In The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, ed. Mele, A. R. and Rawling, P., 57–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huemer, M. 2007. Epistemic possibility. Synthese 156: 119–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, F. 1998. From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kment, B. 2012. Varieties of modality. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 edition), ed. Zalta, E. N.. <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/modality-varieties/>..>Google Scholar
List, C. 2012. The theory of judgment aggregation: an introductory review. Synthese 187: 179–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, A. 2013. Contemporary Metaethics: An Introduction, 2nd edn. Cambridge:Polity Press.Google Scholar
Ooghe, E. and Lauwers, L.. 2005. Non-dictatorial extensive social choice. Economic Theory 25: 721–743.Google Scholar
Pattanaik, P. K. 2002. Positional rules of collective decision-making. In Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, ed. Arrow, K. J., Sen, A. K. and Suzumura, K., vol. 1, 361–394. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Rabinowcz, W. 2015. Aggregation of value judgments differs from preference aggregation. In Uncovering Facts and Values, ed. Kuzniar, A. and Odrowaz-Sypniewska, J. (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities).Google Scholar
Railton, P. 1995. Moral realism: prospects and problems. In Moral Knowledge? New Readings in Moral Epistemology, ed. Sinnott-Armstrong, W. and Timmons, M., 49–81. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Railton, P. 2003. Facts, Values, and Norms: Essays toward a Morality of Consequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ridge, M. 2006. Ecumenical expressivism: finessing Frege. Ethics 116: 302–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridge, M. 2014. Impassioned Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, K. W. S. 1980. Social choice theory: the single-profile and multi-profile approaches. Review of Economic Studies 47: 441–450.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1970. Collective Choice and Social Welfare. San Francisco, CA: Holden-Day.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1977. Social choice theory: a reexamination. Econometrica 45: 53–89.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1986. Social choice theory. In Handbook of Mathematical Economics, ed. Arrow, K. J. and Intriligator, M. D., vol. 3, 1073–1181. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Schroeder, M. 2009. Hybrid expressivism: virtues and vices. Ethics 119: 257–309.Google Scholar
Schroeder, M. 2010. Noncognitivism in Ethics. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Smith, M. 1997. In defense of The Moral Problem: a reply to Brink, Copp, and Sayre-McCord. Ethics 108: 84–119.Google Scholar
Smith, M. 2004. Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. 2005. Meta-ethics. In The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, ed. Jackson, F. and Smith, M., 3–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Voorhoeve, A. 2013. Vaulting intuition: Temkin's critique of transitivity. Economics and Philosophy 29: 409–423.Google Scholar
Weirich, P. 2004. Economic rationality. In The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, ed. Mele, A. R. and Rawling, P., 380–398. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weymark, J. A. 1984. Arrow's theorem with social quasi-orderings. Public Choice 42: 235–246.Google Scholar
Weymark, J. A. 2016. Social welfare functions. In The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy, ed. Adler, M. D. and Fleurbaey, M.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar