The premises of Condorcet's jury theorem are not simultaneously justified

Franz Dietrich

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Condorcet's famous jury theorem reaches an optimistic conclusion on the correctness of majority decisions, based on two controversial premises about voters: they are competent and vote independently, in a technical sense. I carefully analyse these premises and show that: (i) whether a premise is justified depends on the notion of probability considered and (ii) none of the notions renders both premises simultaneously justified. Under the perhaps most interesting notions, the independence assumption should be weakened.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)56-73
Number of pages18
JournalEpisteme
Volume5
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008

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