Philosophy journals and conferences have recently seen several attempts to argue that 'all-things-considered better than' does not obey strict transitivity. This paper focuses on Larry Temkin's argument in "Intransitivity and the Mere Addition Paradox." Although his argument is not aimed just at utilitarians or even consequentialists in general, it is of prticular significance to consequentialists. If 'all-things-considered better than' does not obey transitivity, there may be choice situations in which there is no optimal choice, which would seem to open the (...) door to a consequentialist account of moral dilemmas. Temkin's argument crucially appeals to what he calls "the Person-Affecting Principle (PAP)", which he roughly characterizes as follows, "On PAP, one outcome is worse than another only if it affects people for the worse" This paper argues that PAP, although plausible, does not hold in precisely those situations in which it would have to hold in order for Temkin's argument against transitivity to work. (shrink)

If A is better than B and B is better than C, then A is better than C, right? Larry Temkin and Stuart Rachels say: No! Betterness is nontransitive, they claim. In this paper, I discuss the central type of argument advanced by Temkin and Rachels for this radical idea, and argue that, given this view very likely has sceptical implications for practical reason, we would do well to identify alternative responses. I propose one such response, which employs the idea (...) that rational agents might regard some options as incommensurate in value, and will reasonably employ a heuristic of status quo maintenance to avoid suboptimal choices from incommensurate goods. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of whether the relation of moral preference is transitive. I argue, following Larry Temkin and Stuart Rachels, that any ethical theory complex enough to be even minimally plausible allows us to generate intransitive sets of preferences. Even act utilitarianism cannot avoid this predicament unless we accept its least plausible version. We must reevaluate the assumption that an ethical theory must be transitive in order to be rational. This problem amounts to a foundational crisis in ethics. (...) However, it has not been taken seriously for two reasons—the belief that the problem has limited scope; and the claim that arguments against transitivity are 'merely' Sorites arguments. This article responds to both of these objections. I also point out some connections between intransitivity and the debate surrounding skepticism about the moral significance of numbers. (shrink)