Abstract: The paper provides a general account of value relations. It takes its departure in a special type of value relation, parity, which according to Ruth Chang is a form of evaluative comparability that differs from the three standard forms of comparability: betterness, worseness and equal goodness. Recently, Joshua Gert has suggested that the notion of parity can be accounted for if value comparisons are interpreted as normative assessments of preference. While Gert's basic idea is attractive, the way he develops (...) it is flawed: His modeling of values by intervals of permissible preference strengths is inadequate. Instead, I provide an alternative modeling in terms of intersections of rationally permissible preference orderings. This yields a general taxonomy of all binary value relations. The paper concludes with some implications of this approach for rational choice. (shrink)

Ruth Chang and Joseph Raz have both drawn far-reaching consequences for agency from the phenomenon of incommensurability. After criticizing their arguments, I outline an alternative view: if incommensurability is vagueness, then there are no substantial implications for agency, except perhaps a limited form of naturalistic voluntarism if our reasons are provided by desires.

According to the fitting-attitude analysis of value (FA-analysis), to be valuable is to be a fitting object of a pro-attitude. In earlier publications, setting off from this format of analysis, I proposed a modelling of value relations which makes room for incommensurability in value. In this paper, I first recapitulate the value modelling and then move on to suggest adopting a structurally similar analysis of probability. Indeed, many probability theorists from Poisson onwards did adopt an analysis of this kind. This (...) move allows to formally model probability and probability relations in essentially the same way as value and value relations. One of the advantages of the model is that we get a new account of Keynesian incommensurable probabilities, which goes beyond Keynes in distinguishing between different types of incommensurability. It also becomes possible to draw a clear distinction between incommensurability and vagueness (indeterminacy) in probability comparisons. (shrink)

Presenting the first comprehensive, in-depth study of hyperintensionality, this book equips readers with the basic tools needed to appreciate some of current and future debates in the philosophy of language, semantics, and metaphysics. After introducing and explaining the major approaches to hyperintensionality found in the literature, the book tackles its systematic connections to normativity and offers some contributions to the current debates. The book offers undergraduate and graduate students an essential introduction to the topic, while also helping professionals in related (...) fields get up to speed on open research-level problems. (shrink)

Larry Temkin challenged what seems to be an analytic truth about comparatives: if A is Φ-er than B and B is Φ-er than C, then, A is Φ-er than C. Ruth Chang denies a related claim: if A is Φ-er than B and C is not Φ-er than B, but is Φ to a certain degree, then A is Φ-er than C. In this paper I advance a context-sensitive semantics of gradability according to which the data uncovered by Temkin and (...) Chang leave both statements intact. (shrink)

Joe Horton argues that partial aggregation yields unacceptable verdicts in cases with risk and multiple decisions. I begin by showing that Horton’s challenge does not depend on risk, since exactly similar arguments apply to riskless cases. The underlying conflict Horton exposes is between partial aggregation and certain principles of diachronic choice. I then provide two arguments against these diachronic principles: they conflict with intuitions about parity, prerogatives, and cyclical preferences, and they rely on an odd assumption about diachronic choice. Finally, (...) I offer an explanation, on behalf of partial aggregation, for why these diachronic principles fail. (shrink)

Sometimes it is indeterminate what an agent morally ought do. This generates a Decision Ought Challenge—to give moral guidance to agents in such a scenario. This article is a field guide to the options for a theory of the decision ought for cases of indeterminacy. Three categories of view are evaluated, and the best representative for each is identified.

How should we make choices where the values we subscribe to give conflicting recommendations? I will be defending a reduction of decision making under conflict to decision making under indeterminacy, in the spirit of Broome. To defend this, I set out and endorse the basic features of decision making under conflict that Ruth Chang identifies. I show that we find exactly those features in cases of decision making under indeterminacy not involving conflicting values. Further, my theory of decision making under (...) indeterminacy predicts and explains these features. Particular attention will be paid to the aspect that Chang emphasizes as the decisive problem for the Broomean reduction: the resolutional residue, or angst, that decision making under conflict evinces. (shrink)

Lexical views in population axiology can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion without violating Transitivity or Separability. However, they imply a dilemma: either some good life is better than any number of slightly worse lives, or else the ‘at least as good as’ relation on populations is radically incomplete. In this paper, I argue that Archimedean views face an analogous dilemma. I thus conclude that the lexical dilemma gives us little reason to prefer Archimedean views. Even if we give up on lexicality, (...) problems of the same kind remain. (shrink)

According to the Desire-Based Reasons Model reasons for action are provided by desires. Many, however, are critical about the Model holding an alternative view of practical reason, which is often called valued-based. In this paper I consider one particular attempt to refute the Model, which advocates of the valued-based view often appeal to: the idea of reason-based desires. The argument is built up from two premises. The first claims that desires are states that we have reason to have. The second (...) argues that desires do not add to the stock of reasons the agent has for having them. Together the two theses entail that desires are based on reasons, which they transmit but to which they cannot add. In the paper I deal with a counterexample to the second premise: tie-breaking desires. I first distinguish two interesting cases and argue that only the second challenges the premise. Then I move onto analyze this challenge by focusing on Ruth Chang’s recent employment of it. I show that contrary to its counterintuitive appearance, the challenge can be sustained. However, I also argue that Chang overlooks the full potential of one particular response to the challenge: the introduction of higher-order reasons determining the normative significance of these desires. At the same time, I show that this response has a problem that Chang does not consider. As a result, the response can only partially disarm the challenge of tie-breaking desires; or not at all, depending on what significance we attribute to the counterexamples. (shrink)

In decision-making based on multiple criteria, situations may arise where agents find their options to be neither better than, worse than nor equal to each other with respect to the relevant criteria. How, if at all, can a justified choice be made between such options? Are the options incomparable? This article explores a hypothetical case that illustrates how such a situation can arise in an environmental context; more specifically, it considers the deliberations of an imagined 'ethics committee' as it struggles (...) to decide whether or not a deep-sea mining project should be allowed to proceed. I argue that the case is best understood as involving options that are comparable in the sense of being 'on a par'. Working out from a discussion of Ruth Chang's 'self-governance' theory of choice in cases of parity, I suggest that, in the environmental context, the idea of choices expressing a moral identity may lead us in the direction of a plausible solution to these particularly challenging cases. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper defends a constraint that any satisfactory decision theory must satisfy. I show how this constraint is violated by all of the decision theories that have been endorsed in the literature that are designed to deal with cases in which opinions or values are represented by a set of functions rather than a single one. Such a decision theory is necessary to account for the existence of what Ruth Chang has called “parity” (as well as for cases in (...) which agents have incomplete preferences or imprecise credences). The problem with the all of the decision theories that have been defended to account for parity is that they are committed to a claim I call unanimity: when all of the functions in the set agree that an agent ought to do A, then an agent ought to do A. A decision theory committed to unanimity violates the constraint I defend in this paper. Thus, if parity exists, a new approach to decision theory is necessary. (shrink)

Sometimes, when comparing a pair of items, it appears that neither is better than the other, nor that they are equally good, relative to a certain value that they bear. Cases of this kind have come to be referred to as superhard comparisons. What grounds superhard comparisons? On the dominant views, held by Joseph Raz and Ruth Chang, they are grounded, at least partially, in the failure of the three classic value relations—‘better than’, ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’. On an (...) alternative view, which might be called the vagueness view, first developed by John Broome, they are grounded in vagueness about which of the classic value relations holds between the items. In this paper, I pay special attention to superhard comparisons in the context of choice and develop a novel argument against the dominant views on the basis of an account of decision-making under vagueness in ‘better than’. The upshot is that a new vagueness view emerges. (shrink)

According to Wlodek Rabinowicz's fitting-attitude analysis of comparative value, it is possible to analyse both standard and non-standard value relations in terms of the standard preference relations and two levels of normativity. In a recent article, however, Johan Gustafsson has argued that Rabinowicz's analysis violates a principle of value–preference symmetry, according to which for any value relation, there is a corresponding preference relation. Gustafsson has proposed an alternative analysis which respects this principle and which allegedly accounts for the idea that (...) originally motivated Rabinowicz's analysis, namely, that in some cases different preference relations between a pair of items are equally permissible. The goal of my article is to show that the arguments offered by Gustafsson in favour of his account do not succeed. In particular, I argue that Gustafsson faces a dilemma: either he abandons the principle of value–preference symmetry or he cannot make conceptual room for multiple permissible preferences. (shrink)

According to Wlodek Rabinowicz's (2008) fitting-attitude analysis of value relations, two items are on a par if and only if it is both permissible to strictly prefer one to the other and permissible to have the opposite strict preference. Rabinowicz’s account is subject, however, to one important objection: if strict preferences involve betterness judgements, then his analysis contrasts with the intuitive understanding of parity. In this paper, I examine Rabinowicz’s three responses to this objection and argue that they do not (...) succeed. I then propose an alternative solution. I argue that the objection can be avoided if we ‘relativize’ Rabinowicz’s account and define parity in terms of opposite strict preferences between two items that are only relatively permissible, rather than permissible simpliciter. I argue that this account of parity can be defended if we take seriously the distinction between sufficient and decisive reason for a preference relation. I also show that, on the basis of this distinction, we can arrive at a more extensive taxonomy of value relations than the one proposed by Rabinowicz. (shrink)

Comment pouvons-nous analyser des relations de valeur non standards, comme la parité axiologique, en termes d’attitudes appropriées? Wlodek Rabinowicz suggère que deux choses sont à parité si et seulement si il est à la fois permissible de préférer l’une à l’autre et permissible d’avoir la préférence contraire. Dans un article récent, Johan Gustafsson soutient toutefois que l’analyse de Rabinowicz viole un principe de symétrie entre valeurs et préférences, selon lequel il existe pour toute relation de valeur une relation de préférence (...) correspondante (et vice-versa). À la lumière de ce principe, Gustafsson propose une analyse alternative, selon laquelle deux choses sont à parité si et seulement si il est requis d’entretenir ces choses en parité préférentielle. Dans cet article, j’examine en détail les arguments avancés par Gustafsson contre l’analyse de Rabinowicz et je montre qu’aucun d’eux n’est convaincant. (shrink)

Some theorists believe that there is a plurality of values, and that in many circumstances these values are incommensurable, or at least incomparable. Others believe that all values are reducible to a single super-value, or that even if there is a plurality of irreducible values these values are commensurable. But I will argue that both sides have got it wrong. Values are neither commensurable nor incommensurable, at least not in the way most people think. We are free to believe in (...) incommensurability or not, depending on what particular conception of morality we want to embrace. Incommensurability is accordingly not a theory about value. It is a presupposition that provides a necessary background condition for a certain kind of value to exist. It is therefore not the kind of view that can be morally true or false. As a presupposition, it can only be accepted or rejected on grounds that do not presuppose that morality already exists. Incommensurability is, like the rejection of hard determinism, one of the presuppositions on which morality as we know it happens to be based. (shrink)

According to the mixed lexicographic/additive account of ‘better than’ and similar aggregative value comparatives like ‘healthier than’, values are multidimensional and different aspects of a value are aggregated into an overall assessment in a lexicographic way, based on an ordering of value aspects. It is argued that this theory can account for an acceptable definition of Chang’s notion of parity and that it also offers a solution to Temkin’s and Rachels’s Spectrum Cases without giving up the transitivity of overall betterness. (...) Formal details and proofs are provided in an “Appendix”. (shrink)

In this article, monist values are expressed as preferences like in economics and decision making. On the basis of this formalization, various ways of defining value disagreement of agents within a group are investigated. Twelve notions of categorical value disagreement are laid out. Since these are too coarse-grained for many purposes, known distance-based approaches like Kendall’s Tau and Spearman’s footrule are generalized from linear orders to preorders and position-sensitive variants are developed. The account is further generalized to allow for agents (...) with incomplete information. The article ends with a discussion of known limitations of preference-based accounts of values and how these might be overcome by accounting for parity and essential incompleteness. It is also shown that one intuitively compelling notion of disagreement does not give rise to a proper distance measure. (shrink)

Gert (2004) has suggested that several different types of value relations, including parity, can be clearly distinguished from each other if one interprets value comparisons as normative assessments of preference, while allowing for two levels of normativity - requirement and permission. While this basic idea is attractive, the particular modeling Gert makes use of is flawed. This paper presents an alternative modeling, developed in Rabinowicz (2008), and a general taxonomy of binary value relations. Another version of value analysis is then (...) brought in, which appeals to appropriate emotions rather than preferences. It is also shown what the modeling of value relations would look like from such an emotion-centered perspective. The preference-based and the emotion-based approaches differ importantly from each other, but they give rise to isomorphic taxonomies. (shrink)

In Rabinowicz, I considered how value relations can best be analysed in terms of fitting pro-attitudes. In the formal model of that paper, fitting pro-attitudes are represented by the class of permissible preference orderings on a domain of items that are being compared. As it turns out, this approach opens up for a multiplicity of different types of value relationships, along with the standard relations of ‘better’, ‘worse’, ‘equally as good as’ and ‘incomparable in value’. Unfortunately, the approach is vulnerable (...) to a number of objections. I believe these objections can be avoided if one re-interprets the underlying notion of preference: instead of treating preference as a ‘dyadic’ attitude directed towards a pair of items, we can think of it as a difference of degree between ‘monadic’ attitudes of favouring. Each such monadic attitude has just one item as its object. Given this re-interpretation, permissible preferences can be modelled by the class of permissible assignments of degrees of favouring to items in the domain. From this construction, we can then recover the old modelling in terms of the class of permissible preference orderings, but the previous objections to that model no longer apply. (shrink)

Suppose you can save one group of people or a larger group of different people, but you cannot save both groups. Are you morally required, ceteris paribus, to save the larger group? Some say, “No.” Far more say, without qualification, “Yes.” But some say, “It depends on the sizes of the groups.” In this paper, I argue that an attractive moral principle that seems on its face to support the second answer in fact supports a version of the third. In (...) the process, I defend some revisionary claims about how the lives and deaths of different people compare evaluatively to one another. The most important of these for my purposes is the claim that the deaths of different people are on a par, other things being equal. (shrink)

According to the fitting-attitude analysis of value , to be valuable is to be a fitting object of a pro-attitude. In earlier publications, setting off from this format of analysis, I proposed a modelling of value relations which makes room for incommensurability in value. In this paper, I first recapitulate the value modelling and then move on to suggest adopting a structurally similar analysis of probability. Indeed, many probability theorists from Poisson onwards did adopt an analysis of this kind. This (...) move allows to formally model probability and probability relations in essentially the same way as value and value relations. One of the advantages of the model is that we get a new account of Keynesian incommensurable probabilities, which goes beyond Keynes in distinguishing between different types of incommensurability. It also becomes possible to draw a clear distinction between incommensurability and vagueness in probability comparisons. (shrink)

One response to Derek Parfit's invokes the relation of . Since parity is a form of in John Broome's terms, three doubts which Broome raises about accounts involving incommensurateness in Weighing Lives pose a challenge for this response. I discuss two of these. They emerge from a discussion of various intuitions about . I argue that an account based on parity may be no less consistent with Broome's intuitions than is his own vagueness view.

On parity views of mere addition if someone is added to the world at a range of well-being levels – or ‘neutral range’ – leaving existing people unaffected, addition is on a par with the initial situation. Two distinct parity views – ‘rough equality’ and fittingattitudes views – defend the ‘intuition of neutrality’. The first can be interpreted or adjusted so that it can rebut John Broome’s objection that the neutral range is wide. The two views respond in distinct ways (...) to two of Broome’s other objections. Both views can, nonetheless, be plausibly defended against these objections. (shrink)

This article seeks to contribute to the discussion on the nature of choice in virtue theory. If several different actions are available to the virtuous agent, they are also likely to vary in their degree of virtue, at least in some situations. Yet, it is widely agreed that once an action is recognised as virtuous there is no higher level of virtue. In this paper we discuss how the virtue theorist could accommodate both these seemingly conflicting ideas. We discuss this (...) issue from a modern Aristotelian perspective, as opposed to a purely exegetic one. We propose a way of resolving what seems to be a major clash between two central features of virtue ethics. Our proposal is based on the notion of parity, a concept which recently has received considerable attention in the literature on axiology. Briefly put, two alternatives are on a par (or are ‘roughly equal’) if they are comparable, although it is not the case that one is better than the other, nor that they are equally good. The advantages of applying the concept of parity to our problem are twofold. Firstly, it sheds new light on the account of choice in virtue theory. Secondly, some of the criticisms that have been mounted against the possibility of parity can be countered by considering the notion of choice from a virtue theory perspective. (shrink)

Consider Phoebe and Daphne. Phoebe has credences in 1 million propositions. Daphne, on the other hand, has credences in all of these propositions, but she's also got credences in 999 million other propositions. Phoebe's credences are all very accurate. Each of Daphne's credences, in contrast, are not very accurate at all; each is a little more accurate than it is inaccurate, but not by much. Whose doxastic state is better, Phoebe's or Daphne's? It is clear that this question is analogous (...) to a question that has exercised ethicists over the past thirty years. How do we weigh a population consisting of some number of exceptionally happy and satisfied individuals against another population consisting of a much greater number of people whose lives are only just worth living? This is the question that occasions population ethics. In this paper, I go in search of the correct population ethics for credal states. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that two objects of value can be ‘roughly equal’, or ‘on a par’, or belong to the same ‘clump’ of value in a sense that is fundamentally different from that in which some objects are ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, or ‘equally as good as’ others. This article shows that if two objects are on a par, or belong to the same clump, then an agent accepting a few plausible premises can be exploited in a money-pump. The central (...) premise of the argument is that value is choice-guiding. If one object is more valuable than another, then it is not permitted to choose the less valuable object; and if two objects are equally valuable it is permitted to choose either of them; and if two objects are on a par or belong to the same clump it is also permitted to choose either of them. (shrink)

John Taurek argues that, in a choice between saving the many or the few, the numbers should not count. Some object that this view clashes with the transitivity of ‘better than’; others insist the clash can be avoided. I defend a middle ground: Taurek cannot have transitivity, but that doesn’t doom his view, given a suitable conception of value. I then formalize and explore two conceptions: one context-sensitive, one multidimensional.

Why should ‘better than’ be transitive? The leading answer in ethics is that values do not change with context. But this cannot be the entire source of transitivity, I argue, since transitivity can fail even if values never change, so long as they are complex, with multiple dimensions combined non-additively. I conclude by exploring a new hypothesis: that all alleged cases of nontransitive betterness, such as Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion, can and should be modelled as the result of complexity, not context-relativity.

I will consider how the notion of incommensurability, as championed by Parfit (Reasons and persons, 1984), Griffin (Well-being: its meaning, measurement and importance, 1986), Chang (Ethics 112:659–688, 2002), and Hare (Philos Perspect 23:165–176, 2009), might affect both the argument from slight pain (which suggests God’s non-existence can be inferred from the merest stubbing of one’s toe) and Leibniz’s reply to this argument. I conclude that the notion of incommensurability may ultimately strengthen Leibniz’s general position.

This paper is about an anti-expertise paradox that arises because of self-referential sentences like: = I do not believe that is true. The first aim is to motivate, develop, and defend a novel view of epistemic rationality according to which there can be genuine rational indeterminacy, i.e., it can be indeterminate which doxastic states an agent is rationally permitted or required to have. The second aim is to show how this view can provide a solution to this paradox while also (...) avoiding the problems that plague its rivals. (shrink)

Elga (2010) argues that no plausible decision rule governs action with imprecise credences. I follow Moss (2015a) in claiming that the solution to Elga’s challenge is found in the philosophy of mind, not in devising a special new decision rule. Moss suggests that in decision situations that involve imprecise credences, we must identify with a precise credence, but she says little about identification. By reflecting on the common conception of identification and on what is necessary for Moss’s solution to succeed, (...) I argue that identifying with a precise credence is fundamentally accepting (in the sense of Bratman 1992; Cohen 1989) a proposition about probabilities. The norm on action with imprecise credences is then a special case of the general norm on action and acceptance. I delineate a number of attractive features of this position. (shrink)

According to a standard picture, for any two comparable objects and a basis for comparison, either one is greater than the other or they are equal with respect to the basis. This picture has been called the Trichotomy Thesis, and although it is intuitive and plausible, it has been called into question by such philosophers as Derek Parfit, James Griffin, Joseph Raz, and Ruth Chang. Chang’s discussion is particularly rich, for she proposes and provides a detailed account of a possible (...) fourth relation that, she argues, provides a satisfying explanation of hard cases of comparison. In this paper, I will examine a version of the main argument against the Trichotomy Thesis and attempt to show that it is unsound. (shrink)

This paper presents a dilemma for the additive model of reasons. Either the model accommodates disjunctive cases in which one ought to perform some act $$\phi $$ just in case at least one of two factors obtains, or it accommodates conjunctive cases in which one ought to $$\phi $$ just in case both of two factors obtains. The dilemma also arises in a revised additive model that accommodates imprecisely weighted reasons. There exist disjunctive and conjunctive cases. Hence the additive model (...) is extensionally inadequate. The upshot of the dilemma is that one of the most influential accounts of how reasons accrue to determine what we ought to do is flawed. (shrink)

This article presents an approach to how to make reasonable social choices when independent criteria (e.g., prioritarianism, religious freedom) fail to fully determine what to do. The article outlines different explanations of why independent criteria sometimes fail to fully determine what to do and illustrates how they can still be used to eliminate ineligible alternatives, but it is argued that the independent criteria cannot ground a reasonable social choice in these situations. To complement independent criteria when they fail to fully (...) determine what to do, it is suggested that society must engage in public deliberation by way of generating new reasons that can determine how to rank the alternatives. It is suggested that the approach to social choice presented here reveals a way of accepting the relevance of independent criteria for social choice without letting go of the idea that the attitudes of affected parties matter. (shrink)

This article shows that introducing the positive comparative relation parity only helps one block so‐called “Spectrum Arguments” in order to avoid their unsavoury implications if one specifies parity in a specific way with respect to its persistence. The article illustrates how parity must both admit of persistency and be weakly non‐persistent for parity to block Spectrum Arguments, and identifies some consequences of that discovery for the general debate on Spectrum Arguments, value theory and comparability problems.

How should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability problems has reached an impasse at which it is hard to make any progress. To advance the discussion we (...) suggest a new classification of comparability problems that focuses on the problems they cause for practical reasoning. (shrink)

Value pluralists believe in multiple dimensions of value. What does betterness along a dimension have to do with being better overall? Any systematic answer begins with the Strong Pareto principle: one thing is overall better than another if it is better along one dimension and at least as good along all others. We defend Strong Pareto from recent counterexamples and use our discussion to develop a novel view of dimensions of value, one which puts Strong Pareto on firmer footing. We (...) conclude by defending Dimensionalism, the hypothesis that overall value relations are determined solely by how things compare along value dimensions. These are first steps towards a more systematic value pluralism. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Many philosophers have argued that agents must be irrational to lose out in a or . A number of different conclusions have been drawn from this claim. The has been one of the main arguments offered for the axioms of expected utility theory; it has been used to show that options cannot be incomparable or on a par; and it has been used to show that our past choices have normative significance for our subsequent choices. In this article, I argue (...) that the fact that someone loses out in a value pump provides no reason to believe that they are irrational. The VP is impotent. (shrink)

Ruth Chang has argued for the existence of a fourth positive value relation, distinct from betterness, worseness and equality, which she calls “parity.” In an earlier article I seemed to criticize Chang's suggestion by offering an interval model for the values of items that I claimed could accommodate all the phenomena characteristic of parity. Wlodek Rabinowicz, offering his own model of value relations, endorsed one central feature of my proposal: the need to distinguish permissible preferences from required ones. But he, (...) along with Chang, correctly pointed out that my own model suffered from serious formal problems. The present article offers an improved interval model, but the main point is not the model itself. Rather, it is the derivation of the model from a response-dependent account of practical rationality. This derivation helps explain why we have a concept for which Rabinowicz's model is appropriate, and therefore supplements Chang's existence arguments. My conclusion is that we can take Chang's view, Rabinowicz's and mine as providing a reinforcing set of views. (shrink)

After putting forward a formal account of value disagreement via imprecise measures, I develop a logic of value attribution and of agreement based on truthmaker semantics.

Two options are ‘incommensurate’ when neither is better than the other, but they are not equally good. Typically, we will say that one option is better in some ways, and the other in others, but neither is better ‘all things considered’. It is tempting to think that incommensurability is vagueness—that it is (perhaps) indeterminate which is better—but this ‘vagueness view’ of incommensurability has not proven popular. I set out the vagueness view and its implications in more detail, and argue that (...) it can explain most of the puzzling features of incommensurability. This argument proceeds without appeal to John Broome’s ‘collapsing principle’. (shrink)

I provide support for a liberal political philosophy that is fully committed to the state promotion of autonomy, and which also counts Anti-perfectionism amongst its other commitments. I do so by defending it against the serious charge that it is prima facie self-contradictory. After all, Anti-perfectionism appears to demand that the state refrain from promoting any value – it looks as though that must preclude the promotion of autonomy, if the latter is conceived of as a value. I argue that (...) this self-contradiction is a mirage, whose plausibility depends on an equivocation in the statement given above of Anti-perfectionism. As it stands, the statement fails to distinguish between two types of values, and hence between two different types of Anti-perfectionism that one might endorse. When this is clarified, we can see that on the best understanding of Anti-perfectionism, it is consistent with the promotion of autonomy. (shrink)

This article explores the main similarities and differences between Derek Parfit’s notion of imprecise comparability and a related notion I have proposed of parity. I argue that the main difference between imprecise comparability and parity can be understood by reference to ‘the standard view’. The standard view claims that 1) differences between cardinally ranked items can always be measured by a scale of units of the relevant value, and 2) all rankings proceed in terms of the trichotomy of ‘better than’, (...) ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’. Imprecise comparability, which can be understood in terms of the more familiar notions of cardinality and incommensurability, rejects only the first claim while parity rejects both claims of the standard view. -/- I then argue that insofar as those attracted to imprecise comparability assume that all rankings are trichotomous, as Parfit appears to, the view should be rejected. This is because imprecise equality is not a form of equality but is a sui generis ‘fourth’ basic way in which items can be ranked. We should, I argue, understand imprecise equality as parity, and imprecise comparability as entailing ‘tetrachotomy’ – that if two items are comparable, one must better than, worse than, equal to, or on a par with the other. Thus those attracted to the idea that cardinality can be imprecise should abandon trichotomy and accept parity and tetrachotomy instead. -/- Finally, I illustrate the difference between Parfit’s trichotomous notion of imprecise comparability and parity by examining how each notion might be employed in different solutions to the problem posed by the Repugnant Conclusion in population ethics. I suggest that parity provides the arguably more ecumenical solution to the problem. (shrink)