Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-2jptb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-17T07:51:52.592Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sources of transitivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2022

Daniel Muñoz Open the ORCID record for Daniel Muñoz [Opens in a new window]
Daniel Muñoz*
Affiliation:
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 240 E Cameron Ave Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Transitivityvalue theorymultidimensionalityintrinsic valueCondorcet’s Paradox
Type
Article
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , July 2023 , pp. 285 - 306
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arrow, K. 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values (2nd Edn). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. and Reynaud, H. 1986. Social Choice and Multicriterial Decision-Making. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Baker, K.M. 1975. Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Binmore, K. and Voorhoeve, A. 2003. Defending transitivity against Zeno’s Paradox. Philosophy and Public Affairs 31, 272–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, J. 1999. Ethics Out of Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, R. 2002. The possibility of parity. Ethics 112, 659–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, R. 2005. Parity, interval value, and choice. Ethics 115, 331–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, R.Y. 2015. Value receptacles. Noûs 49, 322–332.10.1111/nous.12023CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coons, C. 2014. Hope for fools: four proposals for meeting Temkin’s challenge. Analysis 74, 292–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cusbert, J. 2017. Acting on essentially comparative goodness. Thought 6, 73–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dancy, J. 2005. Essentially comparative concepts. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 1, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D., McKinsey, J. and Suppes, P. 1955. Outline of a formal theory of value, I. Philosophy of Science 22, 140–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreier, J. 2011. In defense of consequentializing. In Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 1, ed. Timmons, M., 97–119. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishburn, P.C. 1974. Lexicographic orders, utilities and decision rules: a survey. Management Science 20, 1442–1471.10.1287/mnsc.20.11.1442CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, A. 2009. Intransitive ethics. Journal of Moral Philosophy 6, 277–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gehrlein, W.V. 2006. Condorcet’s Paradox. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Gert, J. 2004. Value and parity. Ethics 114, 492–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handfield, T. 2014. Rational choice and the transitivity of betterness. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 89, 584–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handfield, T. 2016. Essentially comparative value does not threaten transitivity. Thought 5, 3–12.10.1002/tht3.188CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, C. 2017. The great spectrum paradox. Unpublished manuscript. http://web.mit.edu/~casparh/www/Papers/CJHareGreatSpectrumParadox.pdf Google Scholar
Howard, C. 2021. Consequentialists must kill. Ethics 131, 727–753.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huemer, M. 2008. In defence of repugnance. Mind 76, 62–72.Google Scholar
Huemer, M. 2013. Transitivity, comparative value, and the methods of ethics. Ethics 123, 318–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humberstone, L. 2016. Review of James W. Garson, Modal Logic for Philosophers, Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hurley, S. 1985. Supervenience and the possibility of coherence. Mind 94, 501–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, L. 2011. Why the Law is So Perverse. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, L. 2015. On Larry Temkin’s Rethinking the Good . Journal of Moral Philosophy 12, 414–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klockseim, J. 2016. How to accept the transitivity of better than. Philosophical Studies 173, 1309–1334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louise, J. 2004. Relativity of value and the consequentialist umbrella. Philosophical Quarterly 54, 518–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, K.O. 1954. Intransitivity, utility, and the aggregation of preference patterns. Econometrica 22, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, D. 2021. The rejection of consequentializing. Journal of Philosophy 118, 79–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, D. Forthcoming. The many, the few, and the nature of value. Ergo.Google Scholar
Narveson, J. 1967. Utilitarianism and new generations. Mind 76, 62–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nebel, J.M. 2018. The good, the bad, and the transitivity of better than . Noûs 52, 874–899.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Persson, I. 2014. Internal or external grounds for the nontransitivity of ‘better/worse than’. Law, Ethics, and Philosophy 2, 120–138.Google Scholar
Portmore, D.W. 2011. Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pummer, T. 2018. Spectrum arguments and hypersensitivity. Philosophical Studies 175, 1729–1744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabinowicz, W. 2008. Value relations. Theoria 74, 18–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rachels, S. 1993. A theory of beneficence. Undergraduate thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Rachels, S. 1998. Counterexamples to the transitivity of better than . Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76, 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rachels, S. 2001. A set of solutions to Parfit’s problems. Noûs 35, 214–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, M.A. 2014. Temkin’s essentially comparative view, wrongful life, and the mere addition paradox. Analysis 74, 306–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, J. 2015. Rethinking the person-affecting principle. Journal of Moral Philosophy 12, 428–461.10.1163/17455243-01204004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. 2017. Collective Choice and Social Welfare: Expanded Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Setiya, K. 2018. Must consequentialists kill? Journal of Philosophy 115, 92–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, K. 2021. Incommensurability that can(not) be ignored. In Value Incommensurability, eds. H. Andersson and A. Herlitz, 231–246. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 1987. Intransitivity and the mere addition paradox. Philosophy and Public Affairs 16, 138–187.Google Scholar
Temkin, L. 1994. Weighing goods: some questions and comments. Philosophy and Public Affairs 23, 350–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 1996. A continuum argument for intransitivity. Philosophy and Public Affairs 25, 175–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 1999. Intransitivity and the person-affecting principle: a response. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59, 777–784.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 2012. Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 2014 a. Reply to Persson: intransitivity and the internal aspects view. Law, Ethics and Philosophy 2, 139–152.Google Scholar
Temkin, L. 2014 b. Summary of Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning . Analysis 74, 265–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 2015 a. Rethinking Rethinking the Good. Journal of Moral Philosophy 12, 479–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 2015 b. Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning: A précis. Journal of Moral Philosophy 12, 363–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, L. 2020. To boldly go where no man, or woman, has gone before! In Explorations in Ethics, ed. Kaspar, D., 81–115. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, A. 1969. Intransitivity of preferences. Psychological Review 75, 31–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar