Challenging the majority rule in matters of truth

Authors

  • Bernd Lahno Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v7i2.167

Keywords:

competence, evidence, social epistemology, testimony, trust in experts, two-expert problem

Abstract

The majority rule has caught much attention in recent debate about the aggregation of judgments. But its role in finding the truth is limited. A majority of expert judgments is not necessarily authoritative, even if all experts are equally competent, if they make their judgments independently of each other, and if all the judgments are based on the same source of (good) evidence. In this paper I demonstrate this limitation by presenting a simple counterexample and a related general result. I pave the way for this argument by introducing a Bayesian model of evidence and expert judgment in order to give a precise account of the basic problem.

Author Biography

Bernd Lahno, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Germany

Bernd Lahno is professor of philosophy at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and the academic director of Frankfurt School’s bachelor program ‘Management, Philosophy & Economics’. His research interests include theories of trust and cooperation, foundational issues in decision theory, and the philosophy of economics.

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Published

2014-12-01

How to Cite

Lahno, B. (2014). Challenging the majority rule in matters of truth. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 7(2), 54–72. https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v7i2.167

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Section

Articles