On Judgment Aggregation in Abstract Argumentation

in Autonomous Agents & Multi-Agent Systems (2011), 22(1), 64102

Judgment aggregation is a field in which individuals are required to vote for or against a certain decision (the conclusion) while providing reasons for their choice. The reasons and the conclusion are ... [more ▼]

Judgment aggregation is a field in which individuals are required to vote for or against a certain decision (the conclusion) while providing reasons for their choice. The reasons and the conclusion are logically connected propositions. The problem is how a collective judgment on logically interconnected propositions can be defined from individual judgments on the same propositions. It turns out that, despite the fact that the individuals are logically consistent, the aggregation of their judgments may lead to an inconsistent group outcome, where the reasons do not support the conclusion. However, in this paper we claim that collective irrationality should not be the only worry of judgment aggregation. For example, judgment aggregation would not reject a consistent combination of reasons and conclusion that no member voted for. In our view this may not be a desirable solution. This motivates our research about when a social outcome is ‘compatible’ with the individuals’ judgments. The key notion that we want to capture is that any individual member has to be able to defend the collective decision. This is guaranteed when the group outcome is compatible with its members views. Judgment aggregation problems are usually studied using classical propositional logic. However, for our analysis we use an argumentation approach to judgment aggregation problems. Indeed the question of how individual evaluations can be combined into a collective one can also be addressed in abstract argumentation. We introduce three aggregation operators that satisfy the condition above, and we offer two definitions of compatibility. Not only does our proposal satisfy a good number of standard judgment aggregation postulates, but it also avoids the problem of individual members of a group having to become committed to a group judgment that is in conflict with their own individual positions. [less ▲]

White Manipulation in Judgment Aggregation

Scientific Conference (2009)

Distributive systems consisting of autonomous and intelligent components need to be able to reason and make decisions based on the information these components share. Judgment aggregation investigates how ... [more ▼]

Distributive systems consisting of autonomous and intelligent components need to be able to reason and make decisions based on the information these components share. Judgment aggregation investigates how individual judgments on logically connected propositions can be aggregated into a collective judgment on the same propositions. It is the case that seemingly reasonable aggregation procedures may force the group to hold an inconsistent judgment set. What happens when the agents realize that the group outcome will be inconsistent? We claim that, in order to avoid an untenable collective outcome, individuals may prefer to declare a non-truthful, less preferred judgment set. Thus, the prospect of an individual trying to manipulate the social outcome by submitting an insincere judgment set is turned from being an undesirable to a “virtuous” (or white) manipulation. We define white manipulation and present the initial study of it as a coordinated action of the whole group. [less ▲]