[EM] Is there an objective best candidate?

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I'll reply to specific points later in this letter, but first I
want to point out that the problem with your claim that there's
an objective best candidate is that even in principle there has
to some way or rule for determining the best candidate. Best doesn't
have meaning unless there's a definition of best; at least in principle
there must be a way of finding the best candidate.

For instance, say we have the use of all sorts of science-fiction
or even fantasy devices. For instance, we have a machine that can
take a person into whatever alternative future he chooses. And we
have an empath, like Deanna Troi of Star Trek.

So, for each candidate, we could send Troi to the alternative future
in which that candidate has won and is President. She could then
check out each person in the country, and determine the happiness of
each person. Maybe she'd also observe their happiness for the rest
of their lives too, and the happiness of their descendents (sp?).

So far so good. But each individual's happiness doesn't tell us
which President is best overall. How are we or Troi to find an
overall measure of which President made people happiest? Sum them,
or sum their squares? But surely Troi won't be able to give us a
numerical measure, so that's out. You could say that she could just
perceive the overall happiness of the counry, but that's begging the
question or cheating. It seems reasonable to use an alternative future
machine & an empath, but not an empath who just directly perceives the
final answer to our question.

And another question? When she determines people's happiness immediately
after the election, and for the rest of that year, and for the rest
of their lives, how should she weight the time periods? We have the
same problem as combining everyone's happiness to judge overall
happiness.

So it doesn't work. Even with those sci-fi devices, we can't
find out who'd be the best President.

But the other problem with your goal of finding the best candidate
is that you assume that the pairwise ballot comparisons will
indicate probability of which candidate is objectively better.
But there's no reason to believe that. I asked you a question that
you didn't answer: Do you  belive that U.S. voters have tended to
pick the best candidate, or anyone other than one of the 2 or 3 worst
candidates?

What makes you so sure that the voters are any good at judging best?

We agree that democracy is the best we can get, but that's not the
same as saying that pairwise preference totals tell us anything about
which candidate is better than the other. I suggest that if the
people aren't very good judges, then we can typically count on
their winner, however tallied, to _not_ be the best. We may not know
who's best, but the people's ballots say a lot  about who _isn't_
the best: their winner.

I'll check out your letter for things that I disagree with after
I send this.

Mike Ossipoff




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