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Freedom of choice and diversity of options: Some difficulties

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Abstract.

This paper explores the possibility for a (non-preference-based) freedom ranking of opportunity sets that is sensitive to the diversity of the options. It turns out that how distances between sets and alternatives are measured is crucial to the derivation of such a ranking. Several proposals are examined, each of which is shown to lead to impossibility results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Groningen, A-weg 30, 9718 , CW, Groningen, Netherlands

    Martin van Hees

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  1. Martin van Hees
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Correspondence to Martin van Hees.

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Earlier versions of this paper were presented at conferences in Kortrijk, Osnabrück, Oisterwijk, Caen and Pavia. I thank the participants at these conferences for their comments. I would also like to thank Steven Hartkamp, Theo Kuipers, Clemens Puppe and especially Kotaro Suzumura for their helpful comments. Furthermore, I am very grateful to Somdeb Lahiri for pointing out a mistake in a previous version of this paper.

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van Hees, M. Freedom of choice and diversity of options: Some difficulties. Soc Choice Welfare 22, 253–266 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-003-0285-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-003-0285-z

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