Dear Greg,
you wrote:
Group membership is difficult to define. With ranked ballots it's
simple, but in the majority criterion debate, I argue that a score of
60% represents 60% of a first preference, not the preference between 59%
and 61%.
Sorry, I don't get your meaning here.
However, it seems to me that there is a confusion about the usage of the
term "majority" in the context of our debate. In the majority criterion
and related criteria, we usually don't speak of *the* majority,
referring to one specific subset of the electorate, but we refer to *a*
majority, by which we mean *any* subgroup consisting of more than half
of the voters.
For example, consider the classical cycle of true preferences, where
voter X ranks A>B>C
voter Y ranks B>C>A
voter Z ranks C>A>B.
In this situation, there are three different majorities: {X,Y}, {Y,Z},
and {Z,X}. Of course these groups are not disjoint and it makes no sense
to speak of "the" majority. Rather, the majority criterion only requires
that each of these groups, should they decide to do so, can overrule the
third voter. That is, X and Y can cooperate in overruling Z and making
sure B wins. Likewise (but not at the same time of course), Y and Z
could agree to elect C. So, it usually makes no sense to speak of "the"
majority since most often there are lots of majorities - it all depends
on which of these groups happens to make the deal to overrule the rest.
> ... we have not settled the issue of simultaneous
majorities.
See above for clarification. There is no issue of "simultaneous"
majorities, the criterion simply requires that each subgroup of more
than half of the voters has a way of overruling the rest. It does not
require that two such subgroups can do so at the same time, which is
obviously impossible.
I continued:
While of course civil rights are very important to make sure that
no-one's basic *rights* are violated, they cannot make sure that
everybody's *preferences* are have a fair chance of influencing
decisions that are made *within* the limits the civil rights pose.
to which you replied:
Let me explain my point. I set the bar fairly high for tyranny of
majority i.e. it must constitute actually oppressing me and not merely
annoying or inconveniencing me to be labelled tyranny.
I don't care for the label "tyranny". My point is that when a majority
is able to overrule the rest with certainty, then that's not democratic.
You talk about the destruction of
democracy.
Did I? I don't think so. I don't think there has been any large-scale
truly democratic system yet. Only some families and small groups often
decide in an approximately democratic way when they make sure that each
member of the group makes a decision at some point in time, for example
by letting the members decide in turn.
That democracy is an all-or-nothing type thing. I am arguing
that a good constitution will prevent a majority from acting in such a
way that democracy itself is subverted.
Not when the constitution allows the majority to decide all issues
without having to be concerned about other peoples wishes.
If you argue instead that
suboptimal results come about, yes I agree with you.
My point is not the "optimality" of results, whatever that may mean. To
define and ensure optimality is a large but different task than to
ensure the democratic right to influence the decision.
For example, some philosophers argued that it would be optimal if some
highly intelligent, well-informed and impartial person (the
"philosopher-king") decided all issues. Though I tend to agree that this
might give "optimal" results, such a system would obviously be not a bit
democratic.
On the other hand, simply drawing a random ballot to decide is perfectly
democratic since it gives each voter exactly the same power regardless
of factions. However, that method would not give "optimal" results at
all since compromise options would get no chance at all. What is missing
here is an incentive to cooperate.
So, whether a method is democratic and whether it leads to "optimal"
results are just two questions which are in large part (but not totally)
independent. This is why we developed FAWRB, a method which gives each
voters the same power but gives them also strong incentives to cooperate
in finding and electing good compromise options.
Again, you speak about actively preventing the majority from doing
something that violates the rights of minority. Such cannot be prevented
by any voting method!
Excuse me! Of course it can. I have demonstrated this over and over.
With FAWRB, the worst a majority of, say, 55% of the electorate can do
to the minority is to bullet-vote for the option considered worst to the
other 45%, thus assigning 55% of the winning probability to that option.
But this is not violating the minorities rights since at the same time
those 45% of the voters can assign the remaining 45% of the winning
probability to their favourite by bullet-voting for that option, making
sure it wins with at least a fair share of the probability.
However, behaving in this way will most often be ridiculous for both
factions. They would both be far better off when they instead figured
out a good compromise option C and marked C as a "good compromise" on
their ballot, in addition to marking their favourite option as
"favourite". Doing so would make sure C is elected with certainty and
both factions would gain from this.
You might argue that under Range they could also honestly give C its
fair rating so that C would also win under Range. But the point is that
the larger faction would be idiotic to do so.
Voting methods differ in their ability to
elect winners best for society, but I guess you already know that.
Yes, I even know that it is nearly impossible to agree upon what "best
for society" is supposed to mean. We had lots of discussions about this
and there are a lot of different and conflicting measures of "social
utility" or "social welfare" on the market. I personally think that this
cannot be solved and, what's more, that it is not ultimately relevant
either. This is because contrary to utilitarians I do not believe it can
be justified to sacrifice an individuals personal rights to increase
some measure of social utility. When 10 persons in a life-boat are
starving, they may still not eat one of them without that person's
agreement, although that would qualify as the option "best for the
group" according to utilitarians (since otherwise all 10 would die).
Horrible.
In my view, group decisions are not about electing the "right" option or
the "best" option (since there is no such thing), but about balancing
different individuals' preferences and giving each individual the same
chance to get what they want.
This discussion of what democracy is and is not does not appear to be
leading anywhere. I'll answer this claim by saying that the majority is
not disenfranchising the rest of the people. It means that majority
opinion is the most reliable barometer of utility.
This is a very interesting new point indeed! So you really think there
is such a thing as "social utility"? And, what's more, you think 55% of
the voters know better than the other 45% what that is? And, even
better, you think this subgroup has the whole society's welfare on their
minds instead of just their own? Well, while that may be so in some few
societies such as Bhutan, it certainly is not the case in any western or
African society I know of. We already discussed the frequent example of
ethnic or religious minorities oppressed by a majority by seemingly
"democratic" methods - yuck!
Think of it as a collection of single decisions. A majority at some
point in the distant past has decided something that almost everyone
disagrees with now, should the current majority be able to change that
past decision? Majoritarians say sure.
Did I say no? This is an altogether new question, so why pose it here?
If the majority isn't deciding, then a minority is.
Er? Perhaps I did not make it clear after all: Democracy demands that
*no subgroup* has the power to decide alone. Neither a majority nor a
minority. *All* voters decide together, using a method which makes sure
each of them has the same power since each of them control the same
amount of winning probability.
Given a large
electorate it is not possible to construct a scneario such that if any
one person voted differently the result would change. Hence the minority
in a majoritarian method wouldn't have a real impact and majoritarians
say it would be foolish to allow them to.
It's not foolish but democratic to let everyone have the same impact in
a group decision.
The initial point still stands, if a majority isn't deciding the result
would be handed over to the decision of a minority, which is paternalism
and evil blah blah blah.
See above. You still seem to think that the only alternative to majority
rule was some sort of oligarchy. There are quite simple methods which
prove you wrong, and I cited them a lot of times.
The difference here being that a majority is fundamentally different
than a minority because it has more people.
That is not a fundamental difference but only a quantitative one. And
because a majority has more people it gets *more* power in a democratic
method than the minority. But that's the extent of it. It gets more but
not *all* power. What's so difficult to understand in this?
Not shifting the focus. I am trying to say that none of any of this is
based on utility or even theoretical pseudo-utility. It is all based on
a categorical imperatives.
That categorical imperative being? My categorical imperative is not to
take decision rights from minorities!
Where are the archives? I'm new at this.
Ah, OK, that explains something. You go to www.electorama.com (a nice
wiki on election methods related to this community) and follow the link
to the archives.
A final remark: I really appreciate it much to have you join our list
since you bring in a lot of good new thoughts. So, please don't take me
wrong if I'm arguing a little tough sometimes :-)
Yours sincerely,
Jobst
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