 An alternative strategy employs tools from social choice theory to map a vector of partial preferences into a total preference relation. This approach only makes use of ordinal information, and disregards any utility information that has no impact on the partial preference relations. Unsurprisingly, the impossibility results of social choice theory affect this method. Steedman and Krause (1986) have shown that there is no rule for deriving total preferences from a preference vector that satisfies four seemingly plausible conditions and also yields a transitive and complete total preference ordering. When applied to an intrapersonal conflict this means that an agent may be rational in the sense of having a complete and transitive (partial) relation for each of the aspects, but may still be irrational either in the sense of not satisfying plausible conditions on the relations between partial and total preferences, or in the sense of not having a complete and transitive total preference ordering for her overall appraisal of the options in question. This argument connects with a long philosophical tradition, including Plato and Bishop Butler, that draws an analogy between intrapersonal conflicts and citizens’ conflicting preferences within a state. 