Theories of Social Welfare Functions: A Semantical Approach

ABSTRACT The paper develops a semantical approach to the theories of social welfare functions (SWFs). On this approach, to present a theory is to give a (structured) family of models, that is, of possible applications of the theory. The structuralist approach in the philosophy of science is applied to the example of the theory of the simple majority rule. This theory is reconstructed in two versions, as a structured set of appropriately defined models. The adequacy of the two reconstructions is proved. An important implication of the reconstructions is that the collective preference is characterised, in structuralist terms, as a theoretical concept of the theory.