“From the point of view of seeking a consensus of the moral imperative of individuals, such consensus being assumed to exist, the problem of choosing an electoral or other choice mechanism, or, more broadly, of choosing a social structure, assumes an entirely different form from that discussed in the greater part of this study.”
Source: 1950s-1960s, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), p. 85
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Kenneth Arrow37
American economist 1921–2017Related quotes
Donald Tusk (1957) Polish politician, current President of the European Council
Speech during Platorma Obywatelska congress in Chorzów (29 June 2013)
Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York
Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)
Context: Almost all Americans accept some religious values as a part of our public life. We are a religious people, many of us descended from ancestors who came here expressly to live their religious faith free from coercion or repression. But we are also a people of many religions, with no established church, who hold different beliefs on many matters.
Our public morality, then — the moral standards we maintain for everyone, not just the ones we insist on in our private lives — depends on a consensus view of right and wrong. The values derived from religious belief will not — and should not — be accepted as part of the public morality unless they are shared by the pluralistic community at large, by consensus.
That those values happen to be religious values does not deny them acceptability as a part of this consensus. But it does not require their acceptability, either.
Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist
Source: 1950s-1960s, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), p. 85 as cited in: Gerry Mackie (2006) "The Reception of Social Choice Theory By Democratic Theory".
Carl Eckart (1902–1973) American physicist
Source: Our Modern Idol: Mathematical Science (1984), p. 33.
Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.17
Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions
The Transcendent Unity of Religions (1953; revised edition 1984)
James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman
Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 33
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist
Source: Mind, Self, and Society. 1934, p. 1 , lead paragraph