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#1: Initial revision by user avatar Derek Elkins‭ · 2021-06-05T02:05:16Z (almost 3 years ago)
Consider the universal quantifier. I'll write it as: $\mathsf{forall}\ x.P(x)$ to be read as "for all $x$ in the domain $P(x)$ holds". We then have the logical identity $$(\mathsf{forall}\ x.P(x)) \land (\mathsf{forall}\ x.Q(x)) \to (\mathsf{forall}\ x. P(x) \land Q(x))$$ where $\land$ is logical conjunction and $\to$ is logical implication. Let's have the domain be people and $P(x)$ mean "$x$ want $A$" and $Q(x)$ mean "$x$ wants $B$". We can then read the above condition as: "if everybody wants $A$ and everybody wants $B$, then everybody wants $A$ and $B$".

If, however, we consider a majority quantifier, write it as $\mathsf{most}\ x. P(x)$, meaning "$P(x)$ holds for 'most' $x$", we do *not* have an identity similar to the above. Using the same intepretation as before, we'd get a statement like "if most people want $A$ and most people want $B$, then most people want $A$ and $B$" which does NOT hold in general. The people who want both is the intersection between the people who want each individually, and while this intersection is guaranteed to be non-empty it's certainly not guaranteed to be a majority. It's easy to imagine a situation where three out of five of your friends want to eat pizza for lunch, and three out of five want to go to the park in the evening, but only one wants to do both.

Scalia's argument could then potentially be interpreted as: "Most states think the death penalty should be allowed and most states treat these groups the same, therefore most states think the death penalty should be allowed with no distinction between these groups of people." This statement doesn't follow.