Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences

Sen’s classic social choice result reportedly demonstrates a conflict between standard welfare concepts from economics and liberalism—even forms of liberalism that are very minimal. By providing what appears to be the first direct general proof of this seminal result, we reinforce a very di�erent interpretation: Sen’s result occurs because one of his assumptions negates the e�ects of another. Our proof leads to other interpretations of Sen’s conclusion, which identify other kinds of societal conflicts and describes the problems Sen identified in terms of probability. By clarifying the central source of Sen’s result, our proof suggests new and practical ways to sidestep these diculties. But a general resolution remains to be found. 1 2