Finding the probable best candidate?

[Forest Simmons]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2002, Blake Cretney wrote:

> By best candidate I really mean the best candidate.  That is, the 
> candidate that would provide the best government.  The candidate we 
> should hope the voters would elect.

I know what you mean, but it is useful to have something measureable to
maximize so that we can see how close we are to the ideal.


> Perhaps I could just define it as the winner of a plurality election?   
> This is just defining the problem away.  

But what does the plurality candidate maximize?

> 
> To be fair, an argument can be made that finding the maximum utility 
> candidate is a good way to get a best guess for best candidate.

Maximum average utility, or Maximum Minimum utility, or maximum utility
product, or ... ?  there are infinitely many essentially different
possibilities.


>  I 
> disagree, but that argument can be made.  I do think the point has to be 
> argued though, not simply defined as true.

I have argued against candidate's utility averaged over voters and for
number of voters giving candidate above average utility (averaged over
candidates), as a more democratic measure of maximum utility candidate.

Actually I prefer to use "satisfaction" rather than "utility" because the
latter term has too many connotations of economics.

Forest