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0 pointsyummyfajitas11y ago0 comments

What does it mean to like party A 10x more than party B? What I'm questioning here is the existence of cardinal preferences, which are necessary for a "will of the people" to be defined. The only way I can make sense of cardinal preferences is to treat them as dollars spent on private goods [1], but I doubt that's what the OP meant.

As it applies to this situation, it's moot - Portland did not express any cardinal preferences.

[1] Non-private goods introduce other incentives that prevent spending from tracking desire.

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cbr11y ago

Let's say I value thing A ten times more than I value things B through K, and I value them all equally whether I get them together or apart because they apply to different spheres of my life. Then I would be indifferent between getting A or getting all of B-K.

fugigig11y ago

Why fo you think cardinal preferences are necessary!?

yummyfajitasOP11y ago

Arrow's Impossibility Theorem says that ranked preferences are insufficient. One stronger assumption you can make is cardinal preferences, which is what desdiv appealed to.

asuidyasiud11y ago

The point is that invoking an impossibility theorem oftentimes - and also in this case - demonstrates that the formalization one has chosen to work with is not a desirable one.

For example, if a group of people by some social process comes to a consensus then arguably this represents the "will of the people". Thus it makes sense to reason about this concept without requiring the existence of ranked preferences.

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