The conditions of ‘fairness’ as conceived in the various social-choice problems are misconceptions analogous to empiricism: they are all about the input to the decision-making process – who participates, and how their opinions are integrated to form the ‘preference of the group’. A rational analysis must concentrate instead on how the rules and institutions contribute to the removal of bad policies and rulers, and to the creation of new options.
Sometimes such an analysis does endorse one of the traditional requirements, at least in part. For instance, it is indeed important that no member of the group be privileged or deprived of representation. But this is not so that all members can contribute to the answer. It is because such discrimination entrenches in the system a preference among their potential criticisms. It does not make sense to include everyone’s favoured policies, or parts of them, in the new decision; what is necessary for progress is to exclude ideas that fail to survive criticism, and to prevent their entrenchment, and to promote the creation of new ideas. [345-6]
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