[EM] difficulty of interpersonal comparisons in utility

[Kevin Venzke]

Brian,

 --- Brian Olson <bql at bolson.org> a écrit : > 
> Well said. This argument goes back at least as far as the canonical 
> work by Kenneth Arrow. In laying the axioms on which his conclusions 
> lay, he argued that you can't compare utility _between_ people.
> 
> I say otherwise. We do implicitly compare utility between people. We 
> declare them all to be equal. That's why the ideal has been "One Man, 
> One Vote". (Unless you're a shareholder where the system is 'one share, 
> one vote')

Do you mean to say that everybody being equal shows that we implicitly
compare utility between people?  And that this shows that election methods
can do so?

> Given that we _can_ compare utilities between people, Rating systems 
> become the natural basis, rather than Ranking systems.

If the above is sufficient to show that we can compare utilities between 
people, why is it more natural to have a rating system than a ranked one?

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr



	

	
		
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