Conclusion

Raz and Chang argue in different ways that incommensurability could not be

vagueness, or not entirely so. But they fail to appreciate the resources available to the

vagueness view. Vagueness need neither be marginal, nor unidimensional, nor

problematically arbitrary.

Incommensurability as vagueness and its rivals can each capture the formal structure

of incommensurability: that none of the three trichotomous comparisons is knowably

true. So we must then turn to the virtues of the competing explanations. (Which in some

cases, though not here, itself generates a kind of explanatory incommensurability.)

Incommensurability as vagueness offers a complete, parsimonious explanation of the

phenomenon of incommensurability. Hard-incommensurability is explanatorily

superfluous; arguments to the contrary mischaracterise either incommensurability or

vagueness.

Moreover, there is a general question for the Trichotomous Incomparabilist who

nevertheless accepts that there is widespread evaluative comparative borderlineness:

where is it all? If Chang is right that it does not manifest as incommensurability, then how

does it manifest? And if Raz is right that some incommensurability is grounded in

vagueness, but the main part is hard-incommensurability, then why can we not identify

clear cases of the two different phenomena? This has proceeded at a very general level,

but there is another way of pressing the point: for any case of incommensurability, we can

locate a source of vagueness that plausibly generates it. I can only report my own

experience, but I cannot think of any instances of incommensurability that cannot be

given a plausible analysis in terms of vagueness.

This is a burden-shifting argument.

32

As such, we cannot rule out the possibility of an

as-yet unseen argument that some or all incommensurability could not be comparative

borderlineness. But the prospects for this are not promising: vagueness seems able to

explain the structure of incommensurability, its connection to multidimensionality and

especially Pareto-mixing, and why incommensurability requires arbitrary choice or

stipulation.

Incommensurability is a puzzle. But the thesis that incommensurability is vagueness

has far-reaching consequences for the nature of rational choice and action. If choice in the

face of incommensurability is choice in the face of vagueness, then it is often (at best)

borderline whether we choose the most valuable option. I think that this, along with

vague credences in epistemology, are manifestations of a broader phenomenon ofvague

reasons, which fail to pick out one class of actions as uniquely justified. As I argue

elsewhere, the ought-reasons platitude—that one ought to do what one has most reason

to do—must be modified in the face of vagueness, since it cannot cope with the claim that

whichever way we plump, we have done as we ought.

33

Incommensurability as vagueness also promises to explain the troublesome

phenomenon ofvalue-pumping: by exchanging incommensurate objects—apparently

permitted on every account of incommensurability—repeatedly, we find ourselves

determinately, clearly worse off. This also arises in (what I argue are) other manifestations

of vague reasons, such as Warren Quinn’s Puzzle of the Self-Torturer, and sequences of

bets that exploit vague credences.

34

Assimilating incommensurability to vague reasons

promises an explanation of the impermissibility of some sequential choices, in terms of

tolerance. It is far from clear whether other accounts have the resources to do so.

35

But

this is an issue for another day, and here I merely offer a promissory note on the

value-pumping front.

Today’s more modest conclusions are that incommensurability is vagueness—at least,

we haven’t seen any reason to think that it isn’t—and that it is vague which holiday is

better.

33_{See Chapter 4.}

34_{See Quinn (1990), Elga (2010), and Tenenbaum and Raffman (2012).}

2

Heaps and Chains: is the Chaining Argument for Parity a Sorites?

Abstract. I argue that the Ruth Chang’s Chaining Argument for herparity

view of value incomparability trades illicitly on the vagueness of the predicate

‘is comparable with’. Chang is alert to this danger, and argues that the

predicate is not vague, but this defence does not succeed. The Chaining

Argument also faces a dilemma. The predicate is either vague or precise. If it

is vague, then the Argument is most plausibly a Sorites. If it is precise, then

the Argument is either question-begging or dialectically ineffective. I argue

that no Chaining-type argument can succeed.

1

Ruth Chang defends the strikingly original claim that there is a fourth value relation

ofparity, instantiated in some cases of value incomparability (also called

‘incommensurability’). The Parity view is that in at least some evaluative comparisons

between two options, neither is better than the other, and they are not equally good, but

the options are nevertheless comparable: they areon a par.Parity is a fourth comparative

relation, besides the ‘trichotomous’ three of betterness, worseness, and equality.

A central argument for this view is the Chaining Argument.

2

But, I shall argue, it has

not been noticed that the Chaining Argument illicitly trades on the vagueness of its key

predicate, namely ‘is comparable with’. Chang is alert to the danger of vagueness, but her

defence against it applies to only one of the two ways vagueness could undermine the

Argument, and there is no clear way to generalise this defence.

1_{I am indebted to Ruth Chang, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Keith Simmons, and three anonymous reviewers} forEthics, for extensive discussion and comments. This paper appears inEthicsVol. 124, No. 3 (April 2014), pp. 557–571.

2_{Chang (2002), especially section II. Chang has also defended Parity elsewhere. For discussion, see for} example Gert (2004) and Wasserman (2004).

In section 1, I sketch the terrain. In section 2, I describe the Chaining Argument.

Section 3 shows how the Chaining Argument is structurally similar to a Sorites fallacy,

and describes Chang’s defence against this. Section 4 shows that this defence is

ineffective against another, overlooked way in which the Chaining Argument could be a

Sorites. In section 5, I argue that this possibility explains the intuitive plausibility of the

argument’s central premise. In section 6, I argue that Chang’s defence cannot be extended

to cover this possibility without question-begging. Section 7 concludes with an argument

that no Chaining-type argument is likely to be effective in defence of Parity.

In document Elson_unc_0153D_14716.pdf (Page 30-33)