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HEADLINE

Social Preferences can't Reflect Rationality as they can for Individuals

METHOD

Symbolic manipulation. Pure and abstract mathematics. A list of axioms, conditions, and steps.

RESULT

There is no possible way to choose among three or more options(he describes it as creating a social welfare function for choosing between distinct alternatives) while fulfilling the following reasonable conditions. 1. Defined for every ordering of individuals' preferences 2. Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives: If z is winning, removing y from consideration should not make x win. 3. Between two states, x not falling and possibly rising without any other change and x was preferred to y before the reordering, x should still be preferred to y. 4. The ordering must change as preferences change. 5. The ordering must not be dependent on the desires of one and only one person.

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