In social choice theory, unrestricted domain, or universality, is a property of social welfare functions in which all preferences of all voters (but no other considerations) are allowed. Intuitively, unrestricted domain is a common requirement for social choice functions, and is a condition for Arrow's impossibility theorem.
With unrestricted domain, the social welfare function accounts for all preferences among all voters to yield a unique and complete ranking of societal choices. Thus, the voting mechanism must account for all individual preferences, it must do so in a manner that results in a complete ranking of preferences for society, and it must deterministically provide the same ranking each time voters' preferences are presented the same way.
Read more about Unrestricted Domain: Relation To Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, Examples of Restricted Domains
Famous quotes containing the words unrestricted and/or domain:
“The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“No domain of nature is quite closed to man at all times.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)