[EM] reply to Gilmour attack on range voting & social utility; CCd to RangeVoting

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax abd at lomaxdesign.com
Sat Dec 10 18:52:47 PST 2005


At 04:14 PM 12/2/2005, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>--- Warren Smith <wds at math.temple.edu> a écrit :
> > Social utility is THE overriding goal which trumps and
> > encapsulates all else.
>
>Surely you see a problem in relying on voters to tell you the social
>utilities...

I don't and I don't think Warren does.

>I don't mind range voting, but I wouldn't use a social utility argument
>to explain what's good about it.

I think it's the only way to understand Range 
votes. That is precisely what a sincere Range 
vote would be, a perception of the social 
utility, by the voter, of the election of the 
candidate being rated, in comparison to the other 
choices. Since "social utility" is mostly a 
gedanken calculation, indeed, a Range vote is 
about the only way to come up with actual numbers 
for social utility. Any other method, such as 
dollar value, is contingent and dependent on what people think is important.




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