Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 1-1-2007
Keywords
Transitivity, Intransitivity, Value, Temkin, Trade-offs
Abstract
This paper deals with problems that vagueness raises for choices involving evaluative tradeoffs. I focus on a species of such choices, which I call ‘qualitative barrier cases.’ These are cases in which a qualitatively significant tradeoff in one evaluative dimension for a given improvement in another dimension could not make an option better all things considered, but a merely quantitative tradeoff for the given improvement might. Trouble arises, however, when one of the options constitutes a borderline case of an evaluative kind. I argue that in such cases we can neither affirm nor deny that trading off losses in one evaluative dimension for gains in another yields a better outcome. Theoretically, this result provides a way to defuse an argument that has been presented by both Larry Temkin and Stuart Rachels that purports to show that the ‘better than’ relation is intransitive. Practically, it allows us to undermine the claim that rational agents are better off withholding their contribution to a public good in certain instances of the free-rider problem, and thus to take an important step towards solving these problems.
Publisher Attribution
Journal of Philosophical Research Volume 32, 2007 Pages 211-233 https://doi.org/10.5840/jpr20073243
Recommended Citation
Journal of Philosophical Research Volume 32, 2007 Christopher Knapp Pages 211-233 https://doi.org/10.5840/jpr20073243
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License