[EM] Defeat Strength

[Colin Champion]

I haven’t read Laplace myself. Borda justified his count as an 
approximation to cardinal voting – i.e. if A is ranked two places above 
C, and B is ranked one place above C, by a particular voter, then 
ceteris paribus the utility gain offered to the voter by getting A 
rather than C is twice the gain from getting B rather than C. Black puts 
the same argument into Laplace’s mouth. So as you say, lesser and 
greater preferences are not treated as equal, but the reasoning isn’t 
probabilistic.
    CJC