Social Choice Theory

The question of how a group of individuals should choose from among a set of alternatives has drawn the attention of social philosophers throughout history. Major strides have been made in the analysis of social choice within the last thirty years, but, unfortunately, the principal results have been negative. Although acceptable choice procedures (such as majority rule) exist for choosing between two alternatives, there seem to be no ideal procedures for choosing among three or more. This lack of ideal procedures has motivated the investigation of a number of second-best procedure's, such as approval voting.