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Judgment Aggregation
Author(s) -
Cariani Fabrizio
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00366.x
Subject(s) - impossibility , focus (optics) , epistemology , aggregation problem , natural (archaeology) , variety (cybernetics) , computer science , mathematical economics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , economics , political science , law , archaeology , history , physics , optics
Judgment aggregation studies how collective opinions arise from the aggregation of individual ones. This article surveys a variety of aggregation rules (possible ways of aggregating individual judgments into collective ones). Aggregation by majority opinion is known to satisfy some but not all the desiderata for an aggregation rule. More general impossibility results show that not all the natural desiderata can be satisfied by a single aggregation rule. To interpret these results, we focus here on some applications of judgment aggregation models in Epistemology. In particular, we explore their possible role in an account of collective belief and collective reason. The focus on these applications allows us to give precise answers concerning which of the natural desiderata must be abandoned.