In a framework of preferences over lotteries, we show that an axiom system consisting of weakened versions of Arrow's axioms has a unique solution. "Relative Utilitarianism" consists of first normalising individual von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities between 0 and 1 and then summing them. This...

In a recent paper to appear in Journal of Economic Theory [Kotaro Suzumura and Yongsheng Xe, "Characterizations of Consequentialism and Non-consequentialism"], an analytical framework was developed, which allowed us to characterize the concept of consequentialism and non-consequentialism. To...

I develop the argument that our current decision-making framework, utility theory, when used by itself, is 1) descriptively incomplete, 2) theoretically flawed, and 3) ethically questionable. In response, I offer an exploratory framework that incorporates both consequentialist and...

Utilitarian voting (UV) is defined in this paper as any voting rule that allows the voter to rank all of the alternatives by means of the scores permitted under a given voting scale. Specific UV rules that have been proposed are approval voting, allowing the scores 0, 1; range voting, allowing...

The problem of how to rationally aggregate probability measures occurs in particular (i) when a group of agents, each holding probabilistic beliefs, needs to rationalise a collective decision on the basis of a single ‘aggregate belief system’ and (ii) when an individual whose belief system...

The problem of how to rationally aggregate probability measures occurs in particular (i) when a group of agents, each holding probabilistic beliefs, needs to rationalise a collective decision on the basis of a single ‘aggregate belief system’ and (ii) when an individual whose belief system...

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...

This paper aims to reexamine the axiom of the independence of irrelevant alternatives in the theory of social choice. A generalized notion of independence is introduced to clarify an informational requirement of binary independence which is usually imposed in the Arrovian framework. We...

Author's abstract. Approval voting has attracted considerable interest among voting theorists, but they have rarely investigated it in the Arrovian frame-work of social welfare functions (SWF) and never connected it with Arrow’s impossibility theorem. This note explores these two direc- tions....