Boyer-Kassem, Thomas (2026) Majority Judgment for Collective Beliefs and Science. [Preprint]

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Abstract

When attributing a claim to a group, should one consider that the larger number of agents who believe P rather than Q is epistemically relevant, and thus "go with the numbers"? The classical view says one should. The thesis defended here is one should not, as soon as agents are able to assign qualitative grades to propositions. At the group level, the aggregation should be made with the Majority Judgment rule. This paper extends it from preferences to belief and science, with significant consequences for the philosophy of expertise and testimony.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Boyer-Kassem, Thomas thomas.boyer.kassem@univ-poitiers.fr 0000-0002-7621-0253
Keywords:	majority voting; social epistemology; judgment aggregation; Condorcet theorem; majority judgment
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
Depositing User:	Dr. Thomas Boyer-Kassem
Date Deposited:	17 Jun 2026 07:32
Last Modified:	17 Jun 2026 07:32
Item ID:	26850
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
Date:	2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26850

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