The Problem of Choosing Together
Social choice theory is not a single theory but a cluster of models and results about aggregating individual inputs—votes, preferences, judgments, welfare—into collective outputs. It asks how a group can choose a winning outcome from a set of options. The field was pioneered in the 18th century by Nicolas de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda, and in the 19th by Charles Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll.
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The word “aggregation” makes it sound like arithmetic, but the inputs can be judgments, not just votes.
That breadth is also the problem: if the theory covers welfare and judgments, it may be describing different problems with one vocabulary.
Still, the historical arc suggests a durable question: what should count as a fair collective decision?