[EM] Russ, 1 March, ´05, 1850 GMT

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I´d said:

>Markus doesn´t like the mention of preference in a criterion, and implies 
>that it´s somehow necessarily imprecise. I don´t agree. Here are a few 
>approaches to the meaning of preference:

I can't read Markus's mind, but I suspect that his objection is not so
much to the definition of "prefer" but rather to the fact that it refers
to a state of mind of the voters separate from the *actual* votes cast.

I reply:

That´s pretty much what Markus has said. But Markus must distinguish between 
the following things:

1. Something doen´t aesthetically appeal to Markus
2. Markus dislilkes something non-traditional because Markus is a loyal 
follower of tradition.
3. A criterion is undefined, or is not well-defined.

I repeat that if anyone believes that a criterion of mine isn´t defined, or 
isn´t well-defined, then he is invited to post to EM a situation 
(configuration of candidates, voters, and votrers´preferences), in which it 
isn´t possible to definitely say whether a certain method passes or doesn´t 
pass that criterion.

Of course you could also tell me exactly what it is that you believe is 
unclear, undefined, not well-defined, ambiguous, vague, etc. in one of my 
criteria. But even if you do that, or think that you have, I ask that you 
also do what I requested in the previous paragraph:

Russ continued:

The question remains, of course, of how
*useful* Mike-style criteria are even if they *are* well defined. On
that matter I differ with Mike.

I reply:

Well, again there are several possibilities:

1. You aren´t interested in getting rid of the lesser evils problem, and 
aren´t interested in minimizing the need for defensive strategy.

2. You believe that my criteria don´t measure for the goal stated above, but 
that other criteria, to be named by you, do.

3. You believe that other criteria, to be named by you, better measure for 
that goal.

I welcome other criteria that measure for that goal. I don´t object to the 
Mutual Majority Criterion, or James´co-operation/defection test, for 
instance, and I use those criteria.

But, if a majority prefer X to Y, should they or should they not have to 
reverse a preference in order to ensure that Y won´t win?

Mike Ossipoff

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