Concept
Social choice theory
Overview
Social choice theory is a branch of welfare economics that seeks to extend the theory of rational choice to collective decision-making. Social choice studies the behavior of different mathematical procedures (social welfare functions) used to combine individual preferences into a coherent whole. It contrasts with political science in that social choice theory is a normative field that studies how a society can make good decisions, whereas political science is a descriptive field that observes how societies actually do make decisions. While social choice began as a branch of economics and decision theory, it has since received substantial contributions from mathematics, philosophy, political science, and game theory.
Real-world examples of social choice rules include constitutions and parliamentary procedures for voting on laws, as well as electoral systems; as such, the field is occasionally called voting theory. It is closely related to mechanism design, which uses game theory to model social choice with imperfect information and self-interested citizens.
Social choice differs from decision theory in that the latter is concerned with how individuals, rather than societies, can make rational decisions.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Yet those who know the habits of the continent of Europe are aware how apparently small a motive often outweighs the desire of money getting, even in the operations which have money getting for their direct object. The more highly the science of ethology is cultivated, and the better the diversities of individual and national character are understood, the smaller, probably, will the number of propositions become…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Social choice theory is; the author is tied to Social choice theory in the knowledge graph.
what are the motives to obey it? or more specifically, what is the source of its obligation? whence does it derive its binding force? It is a necessary part of moral philosophy to provide the answer to this question; which, though frequently assuming the shape of an objection to the utilitarian morality, as if it had some special applicability to that above others, really arises in regard to all standards. It…
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
States what Social choice theory is; the author is tied to Social choice theory in the knowledge graph.
In what is termed politics, democratic social organization makes provision for this direct participation in control: in the economic region, control remains external and autocratic. Hence the split between inner mental action and outer physical action of which the traditional distinction between the liberal and the utilitarian is the reflex. An education which should unify the disposition of the members of society…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
States what Social choice theory is.
Philosophers who discussed Social choice theory
Related ideas
- Game theory
- John Stuart Mill
- Mathematics
- Nero
- Late Middle Ages
- Political science
- Paradox
- Positivism
- Preference
- Theory
- Utilitarianism
- Marquis de Condorcet
- Decision theory
- Utility
- Jeremy Bentham
- Lionel Robbins
- Kenneth Arrow
- Amartya Sen
- Constitution
- Behaviorism
- Majority rule
- Ramon Llull
- Democracy
- JEL classification system
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy and economics.