Abstract

:Preference-aggregation problems arise in various contexts. One such context, little explored by social choice theorists, is metaethical. ‘Ideal-advisor’ accounts, which have played a major role in metaethics, propose that moral facts are constituted by the idealized preferences of a community of advisors. Such accounts give rise to a preference-aggregation problem: namely, aggregating the advisors’ moral preferences. Do we have reason to believe that the advisors, albeit idealized, can still diverge in their rankings of a given set of alternatives? If so, what are the moral facts when the advisors do diverge? These questions are investigated here using the tools of Arrovian social choice theory.