Majorities & Minority Rights

This page gives the syllabus for a course I taught at Haverford College in spring 2016: "Majority Rule, Minority Rights, and Social Choice: Ethics & Economics." The course seeks comprehensively to answer one question: How should we balance between following the will of the people, governing in the people's interests, and respecting minorities' rights? What are the advantages, disadvantages, and possibilities of majority rule, consensus, dictatorship, rule by experts, and other group decision rules, considering that they are attempts to strike that balance? Feel free to e-mail me with questions about the course at tjdonahueAThaverford.edu.

SYLLABUS

MAJORITY RULE, MINORITY RIGHTS, AND SOCIAL CHOICE: ETHICS & ECONOMICS

Thomas J. Donahue

Haverford College, Spring 2016

POLSH305B001

Th 1:30-4. Stokes 018

Office Hours: W 2-4, CPGC Café, or by appointment

Mailbox: Hall Building Faculty Mailroom

E-mail: tjdonahueAThaverford.edu

We are all democrats now. From Moscow to Melbourne, from Beijing to Buenos Aires, from Havana to Harare, political elites and ordinary people everywhere proclaim their commitment to democracy. And democracy, as Lincoln famously said, is rule of, by, and for the people. Rule by the people requires majority rule or consensus, for those are the best ways of discovering the people’s will. Yet pure majority rule is also majority tyranny, and pure consensus slows government to a snail’s pace. Hence both in practice usually amount to a shifting compromise between (super-)majority rule and minority rights. Rule for the people requires ruling in the best interests of all the people. Yet majorities are often oblivious to the basic rights of minorities, or to their own best interests--Hitler was democratically elected. Rule of the people requires effective government. Yet effective government in the modern state requires a governing elite, and such elites may favor the special interests of themselves and those like them. But this creates a ruling class, which flouts majority rule. (U.S. or Japanese political elites are still almost all men, while their populations are majority female.)

This course asks what we should do about these tensions in the democratic form of social choice. Hence the course pivots around one basic problem: How should we balance among following the will of the people, governing in the people's interests, and respecting minorities' rights? What should we make of majority rule, consensus, rule by experts, elite rule, and other group decision rules, considered as attempts to strike that balance? What are the advantages, disadvantages, and possibilities of those decision rules?

The course aims to give students the tools to produce their own well-constructed solutions to that problem. To achieve this aim, we examine famous inquiries into some of the problem's component questions. What is so great about consensus or majority rule? Why shouldn’t we let a minority of experts rule? Or a minority of the highly informed? Or a minority of the highly interested? Is there any reasonable basis for claiming that a society chooses this over that? Should we aim for a democracy in which all citizens actively participate, or are we better off when the people only have a say during periodic elections? What decision rules should we use to organize our common life, and why? How do we balance the rights of minority groups against the rights of disadvantaged minorities within those minorities? Should consensus or majority rule be the default rule of political decision-making, or should some other rule--supermajority or elite rule or rule by experts or dictatorship--be preferred in certain circumstances? If so, which ones? Should all citizens' preferences carry equal weight in political decision-making? Are political organizations inevitably ruled in the special interests of a minority group? We also address, among other questions, whether consensus is inherently biased against activist government, the problem of protecting minority rights, the problem of permanent minorities, the problem of unreasoning majorities, whether majority rule is possible even in principle, whether there is a ruling class, whether there is any way to aggregate all citizens’ preferences into a genuine social choice, and what to do about immoral and unjust preferences entering political decision-making. These are the central questions of the political morality of social choice. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with the application of economic models of rational decision-making to questions of social choice. We shall examine answers given to these questions by leading political theorists like Lani Guinier, James Madison, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Gustave Le Bon, Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Dahl, Ronald Dworkin, and Brian Barry; and by the Economics Nobelists Kenneth Arrow and James Buchanan.

The course aims to hone students’ skills in analysis and argument. Much attention will be given to structures of reasoning and the shape of models and theories. The goal is to strengthen skills of theory-building, reasoning, analysis, and synthesis that are highly valued in public life, in the professions, and in graduate school.

Pre-requisites. No pre-requisite courses. Only a desire to understand how to use theories and arguments. However, to do a good job in this course, you need to have a handle on the key concepts and problems of at least one of ethics, political theory, or economics. If you haven't had a course in any of the three, then I recommend reading a primer on that will give you such a handle. Here are some good ones:

Simon Blackburn, Being Good: An Introduction to Ethics (Oxford UP, 2001), Parts II and III. You can skip Part I.

David Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP 2003)

Partha Dasgupta, Economics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP 2007)

Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume One: Microeconomics (Hill & Wang, 2011)

" " " " , The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume Two: Macroeconomics (Hill & Wang, 2011)

Course Requirements. To earn full credit, you must:

(1) Participate in class discussion. I know many people find this daunting. Nevertheless, try. One main aim of the course is to help you improve in argument.

(2) Submit 6 weekly response papers. Each week, you may submit a paper, of not more than 350 words, that examines some thesis that that week’s reading has argued. The paper may criticize the argument by which the reading defends the thesis, mount its own argument to refute the thesis, or mount its own argument to defend the thesis. For full credit, you need only submit 6 such papers.

(3) Submit a paper proposal. You are required to submit, in Week 8, a proposal for your final paper. The proposal should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), give the key reasons by which you will defend the thesis, state two serious objections to your thesis, and state how you will respond to the objections. The proposal should be not more than 800 words long.

(4) Submit a final paper. You are required to submit, on the last day of exams, a final paper. The paper should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), defend the thesis with argument, state two serious objections to your thesis, and respond to the objections. The paper should be not more than 5,000 words long.

Course Assessment. Course marks will be computed on the following distribution: Class Participation: 20%; Response Papers: 30% (5% each); Paper Proposal: 15%; Argumentative Paper: 35%

Course format. The course will be discussion oriented. In weeks where we are discussing formal proofs, I will walk through the steps of the proof, asking questions and inviting comment. In weeks where we discuss natural-language arguments, I will usually begin sessions by presenting a thesis advanced in the week’s reading. I will discuss its implications. I will then ask one or many of you whether you think the thesis true or false, and why. We shall then examine the reasons you offer for your view. We shall then turn to the reasons the text offers in defense of the thesis. I will ask you what you think of those reasons, and so forth. The course in part aims to improve your skill in reasoned argument.

Course Objectives. By the end of the course, students should

(1) Have become familiar with the key concepts of the theories and arguments about democracy and collective choice covered in the course;

(2) Have strengthened their skills in applying these concepts to current debate about the problems of democracy;

(3) Have honed their ability to specify how and why specific values clash when dealing with problems of democratic decision-making;

(4) Have improved their skills in specifying the disagreement over the relevant facts involved in disagreement over problems of democracy.

(5) Have learned how to accurately describe the structure of a theory, specifying its key concepts, its main claims, the basic model underlying it, and the question to which it is an answer;

(6) Have honed their skills in specifying the structures of arguments, breaking them into premises-axioms, middle premises-lemmas, and conclusions-theorems;

(7) Have improved their ability in distinguishing between similar concepts denoted by the same word and spotting equivocations;

(8) Have honed their skills in evaluating And challenging the premises of an argument with rational and well-ordered arguments of their own;

(9) Have improved their ability to evaluate the deductive validity or inductive strength of an argument’s progress from premises to conclusions;

(10) Have worked out for themselves a detailed and developed argument arguing a thesis about one of the questions covered in the course.

E-mail policy. You are welcome to e-mail me with questions about the course. I try to answer e-mails within 48 hours of receipt. Don’t expect an answer before then. Fast generally means shoddy.

Academic Dishonesty: Don’t do it! Here is Haverford College's official language on the subject:

"A Note from Your Professor on Academic Integrity at Haverford:

"In a community that thrives on relationships between students and faculty that are based on trust and respect, it is crucial that students understand a professor’s expectations and what it means to do academic work with integrity. Plagiarism and cheating, even if unintentional, undermine the values of the Honor Code and the ability of all students to benefit from the academic freedom and relationships of trust the Code facilitates. Plagiarism is using someone else's work or ideas and presenting them as your own without attribution. Plagiarism can also occur in more subtle forms, such as inadequate paraphrasing, failure to cite another person’s idea even if not directly quoted, failure to attribute the synthesis of various sources in a review article to that author, or accidental incorporation of another’s words into your own paper as a result of careless note-taking. Cheating is another form of academic dishonesty, and it includes not only copying, but also inappropriate collaboration, exceeding the time allowed, and discussion of the form, content, or degree of difficulty of an exam. Please be conscientious about your work, and check with me if anything is unclear."

I may, at any time, use tools like turnitin.com to detect plagiarism.

Students with Disabilities, Special Needs, or Having Difficulties: Here is the Haverford Office of Disability Services' Statement, which I affirm:

"Haverford College is committed to supporting the learning process for all students. Please contact me as soon as possible if you having difficulties in the course. There are also many resources on campus available to you as a student, including the Office of Academic Resources, and the Office of Disability Services. If you think you may need accommodation because of a disability, please contact Gabriela Moats, Coordinator of Accommodations, Office of Disabilities Services at he-odsAThaverford.edu. If you have already been approved to request accommodations in this course because of a disability, please meet with me privately at the beginning of the semester with your verification letter."

Writing response papers: Here are guidelines on what I’m looking for, and what I’m not looking for, but other teachers might be: https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/writing-response-papers

How to understand and use theories: Puzzled? You're not alone! Even the professionals find this difficult. Click here for some tips on how to do it: https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/using-theories

How to do political philosophy: The approach used in this course is political philosophy. For some tips on how to do it, click here:

https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/political-philosophy-why-and-how

REQUIRED BOOKS

[1] Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (Yale UP, 1989)

[2] James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Liberty Fund, 200x)

[3] John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government, ed. C. Gordon Post and Shannon Stimson (Hackett, 1995)

[4] Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (Yale UP, 1963)

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

[1] Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy (Free Press, 1994)

[2] Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, The Craft of Research (University of Chicago Press, 2008). Available online through all of the Tri-College Libraries.

[3] Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments (Hackett, 2008)

GUIDES TO WRITING GOOD PAPERS: THE PROSE, THE PROBLEM, AND THE ARGUMENT

[1] Richard Lanham's Paramedic Method.

It transforms slow-starting sentences with obscure subjects into sentences with clear actors and actions.

[2] The Bennett rules for writing decent prose in theoretical papers.

Jonathan Bennett says: Prefer verbs to nouns. Prefer adverbs to adjectives. Avoid intensifiers ( like "very" or "extremely"). Use sparingly the abstract nouns--big words from Latin and Greek ending with "--ation," "--ity," "-ism," "-ology," "-nomy," etc.--; don't cram a sentence full of them.

[3] Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (Longman, 2010).

Explains why and when to use Lanham's Method and Strunk and White's rules; and when to break them. Explains how to organize information in a sentence: put the familiar at the front, and the new at the end. Also explains how to make paragraphs coherent: each paragraph should have a point sentence articulating its main point, and this should come either at the end of the paragraph's introductory sentence, or at the paragraph's end.

[4] "From Questions to Problems," Section II.4 of Wayne Booth et al., The Craft of Research.

Crucial for writing research papers. You need more than a topic. You need more than a research question. You need more than a thesis. You need a research problem, which tells a definite audience what is the bigger question they can't fully answer until they've followed your answering of your research question.

[5] Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments (Hackett, 2008).

SCHEDULE

Session 1. (1) Introduction: Benefits, Dangers, and Alternatives to Majority Rule. (2) Two Traditions of Thinking about Majority Rule and Democracy: the Rousseauian and the Lockeian. (3) History of Majority Rule.

Optional readings:

Herbert Gans, "We Won’t End the Urban Crisis Until We End 'Majority Rule'," in Prejudice and Race Relations, ed. Raymond W. Mack (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971):126-141.

George H. Sabine, "The Two Democratic Traditions," Philosophical Review 61 (1952): 451-474.

John Gilbert Heinberg, "History of the Majority Principle," American Political Science Review (1926):52-68.

Session 2. (1) James Madison's Theory of Democracy as a Way of Avoiding Either Majority Tyranny or Tyranny of a Minority. (2) John Stuart Mill’s Critique of the Pitfalls of Majority Rule, and His Argument for Proportional Representation as an Alternative.

Robert A. Dahl, "Madisonian Democracy," A Preface to Democratic Theory, pp. 4-33.

[Cleaner copies of the chapter: First half downloadable here, and the second half here]

John Stuart Mill, "Of the Infirmities and Dangers to which Representative Government Is Liable," and then "Of True and False Democracy; Representation of All, and Representation of the Majority Only," Considerations on Representative Government, Chs. VI and VII.

So you'd like to know more...

An example of majority tyranny: Hitler cheered by adoring crowds (video)

An example of minority tyranny: Apartheid South Africa (video)

Brian Barry, "Political Accomodation and Consociational Democracy," British Journal of Political Science 5 (1975): 477-505, READ pp. 477-490 ONLY

Treats consociation or permanent power-sharing as a Non-Majoritarian Institution for Dealing with Two or More Evenly and Sharply Divided Groups in a Society.

Session 3. (1) The Doctrine of the Concurrent Majority as a Means of Avoiding the Pitfalls of Majority Rule. (2) A Modern Version of the Concurrent Majority, Re-tooled to Reduce Racial Oppression

John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government, ed. C. Gordon Post (Hackett, 1995), pp. 3-54.

Lani Guinier, “The Tyranny of the Majority,” The Tyranny of the Majority (1995), pp. 1-21.

So you'd like to know more...

An example of the concurrent majority: Any EU member-state can veto EU policies on many issues (video)

Melissa S. Williams, Voice, Trust, and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation (Princeton UP, 1998)

Session 4. (1) Noncompetitive Party Systems: Vehicles of Absolute Rule by the Majority? (2) Does Majority Rule Deny Cultural Minorities the Opportunity to Flourish? (3) Minority Representation as a Means of Protecting Minority Rights.

Giovanni Sartori, "Noncompetitive Systems," Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (Cambridge UP, 1976): 217-243.

Bernard Boxill, "Majoritarian Democracy and Cultural Minorities," in Multiculturalism and American Democracy, ed. Arthur M. Melzer et al (UKansas Pres, 1998): 112-119.

Will Kymlicka, "Ensuring a Voice for Minorities," Multicultural Citizenship (OUP, 1995): 131-151.

So you'd like to know more...

Legally-required one-party rule in China (video)

Voluntary representation of minorities in political office (video)

The Philippine government grants group rights to a minority cultural group (video)

Will Kymlicka, "The Shifting International Context: From Post-War Universal Human Rights to Post-Cold-War Minority Rights," Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (Oxford UP, 2007): 27-55.

Session 5. Feb 18. (1) Some Cultural Minorities Contain Internal Minorities (e.g., women) That The Minority's Elites Itself Allegedly Oppress. If We Grant Political Autonomy to Cultural Minorities, How Do We Deal with the Inevitable Impacts on these Internal Minorities? (2) What Role Should There Be for Minorities and Their Rights in a Democracy? (3) Should the Moral Views of the National Majority Be Given Special Deference?

Leslie Green, "Internal Minorities and their Rights," in The Rights of Minority Cultures, ed. Will Kymlicka (Oxford UP, 1995): 256-274.

Iris Marion Young, "Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship," Ethics (1989): 250-274

Ronald Dworkin, "Liberty and Moralism," Taking Rights Seriously (Belknap Press,1977): 240-259.

So you'd like to know more...

CNN Report on France's 2012 ban of wearing niqab or burka, with the French government claiming the niqab enslaves its women wearers.

Interview with Reverend Jerry Falwell, founder of the U. S. Moral Majority movement (video). They claimed to represent the moral views of the U.S. national majority in the 1980s.

A 1980s documentary on the Moral Majority, produced by their opponents, People for the American Way.

DEADLINE TO HAVE SUBMITTED A TOTAL OF TWO RESPONSE PAPERS FOR SEMESTER

Session 6. Feb 25. (1) Is the Majority So Irrational that Its Rule Is Undesirable? The Crowd Theory of Gustave Le Bon. (2) Are Groups Inevitably Ruled by Minorities? Elite Theory. (3) The Idea of a Ruling Class in Capitalist Society.

J. S. McClelland, "Liberalism’s Special Enemies: The Crowd and Its Theorists," A History of Western Political Thought (Routledge 1996): READ pp. 661-677 ONLY.

J. S. McClelland, "The Elitist Critique of Democracy," A History of Western Political Thought (Routledge 1996): 639-642, 650-658.

Richard W. Miller, "The Concept of a Ruling Class," Analyzing Marx (Princeton UP, 1987):101-141.

So you'd like to know more...Click here for further reading materials on the ignorance of voting majorities, and on minority domination

An example of the crowd behavior Le Bon has in mind: Beatlemania video.

The alleged ruling-class that ruled the capitalist countries from the 1940s until the neo-liberal revolution of 1980: the technocratic managers of the big corporation--the technostructure (episode from John Kenneth Galbraith's famous Age of Uncertainty series)

The 1980s destruction of the technostructure ruling-class by a new ruling class--free-market big stockholders, especially pension funds (BBC documentary)

Session 7. Mar 3. (1) So What’s So Great about Majority Rule? (2) Is the Multitude Wiser than the Few?

Robert Dahl, "Majority Rule and the Democratic Process," Democracy and Its Critics, pp. 135-152.

Dahl, "Is There a Better Alternative?" Democracy and Its Critics, pp. 153-162.

Jeremy Waldron, "The Wisdom of the Multitude," Political Theory 23 (1995): 563-584.

So you'd like to know more...

Henry Richardson, "Majority Rule as a Closure Device," Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning about the Ends of Policy (Oxford UP, 2002):203-214

SPRING BREAK!

Session 8. Mar 17. (1) Who Says the Details of Group Decision Rules Don't Matter? (2) Benefits of Majority Rule. (3) Can An Election Ever Uncover the General Will of a Community? The Case of the Condorcet Jury Theorem.

Nate Silver, "Donald Trump Would be Easy to Stop under Democratic [Party] Rules," FiveThirtyEight (7 March 2016)

Albert Weale, "Unanimity, Consensus, and Majority Rule," Democracy (Palgrave, 1999): 124-147.

Bernard Grofman and Scott Feld, "Rousseau's General Will: A Condorcetian Perspective," American Political Science Review 82 (1988): 567-576.

PAPER PROPOSAL DUE.

So you'd like to know more...

Brian Barry, "Is Democracy Special?" in Rational Man and Irrational Society, pp. 325-340.

Examines in what ways majority rule is and can be responsive to differing intensities of preference.

Session 9. Mar 24. (1) The Problem of Social Choice Posed. (2) A Challenge to Arrow's Assumption that Social Choice Means that Society Chooses.

Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd edition, pp. 1-33.

Alfred McKay, "Social Choice and Arrow's Paradox," Arrow’s Theorem: The Paradox of Social Choice (Yale UP, 1980): 1-12.

A helpful explanation of what the heck Arrow is up to.

James M. Buchanan, "Social Choice, Democracy, and Free Markets," Journal of Political Economy 62 (1954): 114-123.

Session 10. Mar 31. (1) What Does It Mean? An Interpretation of Arrow’s Conditions on Social Choice, and His Result. (2) Arrow's Social Choice Theory Assumes that All Preferences and Values Are Commensurable--They Can Be Rank-Ordered by Individuals and Society--But Is that Assumption True? The Theory of Value Pluralism. (3) Should We See Politics as Social Choice Theory Does--as Fundamentally a Matter of Private Choice by Self-Interested Individuals--or as Fundamentally Aiming at Reasonable Deliberation among Citizens?

Charles R. Plott, "Axiomatic Social Choice Theory: An Overview and Interpretation," in Rational Man and Irrational Society, ed. Brian Barry and Russell Hardin (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982): 229-245.

Isaiah Berlin, "The Pursuit of the Ideal," The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (Princeton UP, 1990): 1-20

Jon Elster, "The Market and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory," in Foundations of Social Choice Theory, ed. J. Elster and A. Hylland (Cambridge UP, 1986): 103-132, READ pp. 103-120 ONLY.

So you'd like to know more...

Bernard Williams, "Conflicts of Values," in The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin (Oxford UP, 1979), ed. Alan Ryan, pp. 221-232.

Joseph Raz, "Incommensurability," The Morality of Freedom (Clarendon Press, 1986): 321-366.

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT FOUR RESPONSE PAPERS

Session 11. April 7. (1) An Economic Theory of Constitutional Choice Favoring Supermajority Rules: Public Choice Theory—Part I: Its Foundation in Methodological Individualism and Social Atomism. (2) Individualism: Its Diverse Meanings. (3) What Is the Social Atomist Tradition, and Does It Underlie All Modern Contract Thinking?

James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, pp. 3-39.

Steven Lukes, "The Meanings of ‘Individualism’," Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (1971): 45-66, READ pp. 45-58 ONLY.

Elizabeth H. Wolgast, "A World of Social Atoms," The Grammar of Justice (Cornell UP, 1987): 1-27.

So you'd like to know more...Click here for further materials on individuals and social atoms

Session 12. April 14. (1) An Economic Theory of Constitutional Choice Favoring Supermajority Rules: Public Choice Theory—Part II: Its Foundation in an Ideal Of Consensus; (2) Are Consensus as an Ideal, and Supermajority as a Second-Best, the Only Feasible Way of Protecting against Tyranny of the Majority and the Central State? Or is Public Choice Theory Led to That Conclusion Because of Its Atomistic Economic Approach? The Federalism and Participation Solution Offered by the Sociological Liberalism of Tocqueville and the French Doctrinaires.

James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, pp. 39-62, 81-96

Larry Siedentop, "Two Liberal Traditions," in The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin, ed. Alan Ryan (Oxford UP, 1979): 153-174.

So you'd like to know more...

Melissa Schwartzberg, “The arbitrariness of supermajority rules,” Social Science Information 49 (2010): 61-82

Session 13. April 21. (1) The Liberal Paradox: Can a Liberal Consistently Accept the Pareto Principle? (2) What Should We Do about Bad or Immoral Preferences entering into the Social Choice? (3) What Should We Do If We Want to Relieve the Oppression of Women, But Many of Those Women Prefer to Keep the Social Structures That Oppress Them?

Amartya Sen, "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Journal of Political Economy 78 (1970): 152-157.

Brian Barry, "Lady Chatterley's Lover and Doctor Fischer’s Bomb Party: Liberalism, Pareto Optimality, and the Problem of Objectionable Preferences," Foundations of Social Choice Theory, ed. J. Elster and A. Hylland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986): 11-43, READ pp. 11-33 ONLY.

Martha C. Nussbaum, "Adaptive Preferences and Women's Options," Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge UP, 2000): 111-166, READ pp. 111-144 ONLY.

So you'd like to know more....

Amartya Sen, "Foundations of Social Choice Theory: An Epilogue," in Foundations of Social Choice Theory, ed. Elster and Hylland, read 215-232

Robert E. Goodin, "Laundering Preferences," in Foundations of Social Choice Theory, ed. Elster and Hylland: 75-97

Jon Elster, "Sour Grapes: Utilitarianism and the Genesis of Wants," in Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams (Cambridge UP, 1983): 219-238

Session 14. April 28. Does Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem Show That It Is Impossible to Discover the Social Choice, and Hence that Democracy Is Impossible? Arguments for "Yes" and "No"

William H. Riker, Liberalism against Populism: A Confrontation between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice (Waveland 1982), pp. 1-36

Jules Coleman and John Ferejohn, “Democracy and Social Choice,” Ethics 97 (1986): 6-25, READ pp. 6-19 ONLY.

So you'd like to know more...

Carole Pateman, "Social Choice or Democracy? A Comment on Coleman and Ferejohn," Ethics 97 (1986): 39-46.

Mathias Risse, “Arguing for Majority Rule,” Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (2004): 41-64.

FINAL PAPER DUE VIA E-MAIL LAST DAY OF EXAMS BY NOON EASTERN TIME (FOR SENIORS, 5pm EASTERN

Sat May 7, via e-mail)