[Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the compromise when there're only 2 factions

[heitzig-j at web.de]

Dear Abd ul-Rahman,

> No. That's consensus. Consent is individual acceptance of a result, 
> majority consent refers to consent by a majority.

Yes, obviously I was confusing the two :-)

> >It is not democratic whenever some group can impose its will on the 
> >others (in the sense of making their preferred outcome certain). No 
> >matter whether that group is a majority or a minority. From this it 
> >follows that a method which is always deterministic cannot possibly 
> >be democratic.
> 
> This is a serious error. It treats democracy as an absolute, when, in 
> fact, it is relative. We have complete democracy, with respect to 
> some decision, when everyone consents. And we have no democracy if 
> nobody consents.
> 
> A situation is more democratic when not when a majority consent. This 
> is the point where we can start to term the result "democratic." But 
> its not fully democratic unless everyone consents.

Obviously, your definition of "democratic" is different from mine. It seems that by yours, one will seldom have what you call full democracy in a polarized situation since there will be no consensus. 

> >>Question: if the majority explicitly consents to this for a 
> >>specific election, does the election method satisfy the Majority Criterion?
> >
> >If the system would have allowed the majority to decide otherwise, 
> >the *system* is majoritarian.
> 
> No, that was not the question, which was quite specific. It's a bit 
> rude not to answer the question! I did not ask if the system was 
> "majoritarian," and that is not clearly defined.

Sorry for having appeared rude. I just don't care about the Majority Criterion but about whether a majority can impose its will (which makes a system majoritarian by definition).

> >>> > I'm not sure at all what a "just share of power" is.
> >>>
> >>>Me neither. But no power at all is definitely not a just share of power.
> >>>By posting on this topic I hope a discussion on this will eventually
> >>>begin.
> >>What I pointed out here was that the ratings given did not contain 
> >>sufficient information to determine justice.
> >
> >Yes it does. I gave a reasoning why I consider C the more just 
> >solution because everyone prefers it to the "democratic benchmark".
> 
> But your "democratic benchmark", apparently, requires consensus. 

Why? The benchmark solution is to draw a ballot at random. With this lottery I compare other outcomes, be they deterministic or again lotteries. An outcome which everybody prefers to drawing a random ballot (like C in the example) is arguably a good solution since everybody gains from it, whereas an outcome which 45% like worse than drawing a random ballot (like A in the example) is arguably a bad solution since it places many voters in a worse situation than the pure democratic random ballot lottery.

> Yet 
> you would, it appears, impose the result of C even if the A voters 
> don't consent. 

Yes, this is what it is all about. I'm searching for a method that will result in C when all voters vote "rationally" in the sense that they maximize their expected ratings until a group strategy equilibrium is established. D2MAC and some of the scoring methods discussed on this thread do this. Some of them require strategic voting and some even succeed at electing C with sincere votes (like D2MAC for instance).

> The word "justice" does not refer to any "democratic 
> benchmark." Democracy and justice are not synonyms.

Did I say that? What I mean is that in my interpretation of justice, random ballot is a more just solution than majority rule since it gives each voter equal chance to influence the outcome.

> That's correct, a definition was given. My apologies. However, the 
> central point is that these are relative ratings, not absolute ones. 
> They are not commensurable, so aggregating them in this form is 
> vulnerable to imbalances that can represent injustice. 

Sorry, but I don't remember who did any aggregating of the ratings. Could you cite that again?

> Real utilities can be discovered by various means, and so made 
> commensurable. 

Like how?

> It's not difficult to think of schemes for this, 

At least for me, it is :-)

Yours, Jobst
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