IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/polstu/v52y2004i1p144-161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Choice and the Grammar of Rights and Freedoms

Author

Listed:
  • Keith Dowding

Abstract

The techniques of social choice and game theory are increasingly being used to analyse concepts in political theory. Although these techniques may prove invaluable for teasing out contradictory formulations, puzzles and problems with traditional concepts, formal writers often begin their analysis with simplistic intuitive accounts rather than building on earlier traditions in analytic political theory. This is no more obvious than with the social‐choice and game‐theory analysis of rights and freedoms. This paper reviews these approaches and demonstrates that by ignoring the grammar of rights and freedoms, social‐choice and game‐theory analysis goes wrong from the very beginning. Formal writers need to take more account of the history of their subject, as developed in the analytic theory tradition.

Suggested Citation

  • Keith Dowding, 2004. "Social Choice and the Grammar of Rights and Freedoms," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(1), pages 144-161, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:52:y:2004:i:1:p:144-161
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00469.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00469.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00469.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pattanaik, Prasanta K & Suzumura, Kotaro, 1996. "Individual Rights and Social Evaluation: A Conceptual Framework," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 194-212, April.
    2. Martin van Hees, 2000. "Negative Freedom And The Liberal Paradoxes," Rationality and Society, , vol. 12(3), pages 335-352, August.
    3. Sugden, Robert, 1985. "Liberty, Preference, and Choice," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 213-229, October.
    4. Riley, Jonathan, 1990. "Rights to Liberty in Purely Private Matters: Part II," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 27-64, April.
    5. Fine, Ben, 1975. "Individual Liberalism in a Paretian Society," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1277-1281, December.
    6. Barnett,William A. & Moulin,Hervé & Salles,Maurice & Schofield,Norman J. (ed.), 1995. "Social Choice, Welfare, and Ethics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521443401, September.
    7. John Aldrich, 1977. "The dilemma of a paretian liberal: Some consequences of Sen's theorem," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 1-21, June.
    8. Bossert Walter & Pattanaik Prasanta K. & Xu Yongsheng, 1994. "Ranking Opportunity Sets: An Axiomatic Approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 326-345, August.
    9. Peacock, Alan T & Rowley, Charles K, 1972. "Pareto Optimality and the Political Economy of Liberalism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(3), pages 476-490, May-June.
    10. Dowding, Keith & Hees, Martin Van, 2003. "The Construction of Rights," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 281-293, May.
    11. Martin Van Hees & Marcel Wissenburg, 1999. "Freedom and Opportunity," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 47(1), pages 67-82, March.
    12. Riley, Jonathan, 1989. "Rights to Liberty in Purely Private Matters," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 121-166, October.
    13. Amartya SEN, 1990. "Welfare, Freedom and Social Choice: a Reply," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 1990040, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    14. Sen, Amartya, 1988. "Freedom of choice : Concept and content," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 269-294, March.
    15. repec:bla:econom:v:61:y:1994:i:242:p:167-78 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Amartya Sen, 1997. "Individual Preference as the Basis of Social Choice," International Economic Association Series, in: Kenneth J. Arrow & Amartya Sen & Kotaro Suzumura (ed.), Social Choice Re-examined, chapter 2, pages 15-37, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Sen, Amartya, 1991. "Welfare, preference and freedom," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1-2), pages 15-29, October.
    18. Sen, Amartya, 1995. "Rationality and Social Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 1-24, March.
    19. Ken Binmore, 1994. "Game Theory and the Social Contract, Volume 1: Playing Fair," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262023636, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James E. Foster, 2010. "Freedom, Opportunity and Wellbeing," Working Papers 2010-15, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    2. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    3. Antoinette Baujard, 2006. "Conceptions of freedom and ranking opportunity sets. A typology," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 200611, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    4. Gekker, Ruvin & van Hees, Martin, 2006. "Freedom, opportunity and uncertainty: A logical approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 246-263, September.
    5. Berrens, Robert P. & Polasky, Stephen, 1995. "The Paretian Liberal Paradox and ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 45-56, July.
    6. Sebastian Silva-Leander, 2011. "On the Possibility of Measuring Freedom: A Kantian Perspective," OPHI Working Papers 49, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    7. Suzumura, Kotaro & Xu, Yongsheng, 2001. "Characterizations of Consequentialism and Nonconsequentialism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 423-436, December.
    8. Martin van Hees, 1998. "On the Analysis of Negative Freedom," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 175-197, October.
    9. Martin Van Hees, 2003. "Acting Autonomously Versus not Acting Heteronomously," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 337-355, June.
    10. Jorge Alcalde-Unzu & Miguel Ballester & Jorge Nieto, 2012. "Freedom of choice: John Stuart Mill and the tree of life," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 209-226, March.
    11. Suzumura, Kotaro & Xu, Yongsheng, 2003. "Consequences, opportunities, and generalized consequentialism and non-consequentialism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 293-304, August.
    12. Serge-Christophe Kolm, 2003. "Macrojustice : distribution, impôts et transferts optimaux," IDEP Working Papers 0305, Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France.
    13. Sebastian Bervoets, 2007. "Freedom of choice in a social context: comparing game forms," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 29(2), pages 295-315, September.
    14. Prasanta K. Pattanaik, 2018. "Individual Freedom and Welfare Economics," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(1), pages 1-12, March.
    15. Sebastiano Bavetta & Marco Del Seta, 2001. "Constraints and the Measurement of Freedom of Choice," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 213-238, May.
    16. Walter Bossert, 1998. "Opportunity Sets and the Measurement of Information," Discussion Papers 98/6, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    17. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:30:y:2010:i:1:p:103-114 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Kotaro Suzumura, 2002. "Introduction to social choice and welfare," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 442, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Ok, Efe A., 1997. "On Opportunity Inequality Measurement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 300-329, December.
    20. Iwata, Yukinori, 2007. "A variant of non-consequentialism and its characterization," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 284-295, May.
    21. Bossert, Walter, 2000. "Opportunity sets and uncertain consequences1," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 475-496, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:52:y:2004:i:1:p:144-161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0032-3217 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.