In recent times it has become common to encounter philosophers who recommend the replacement of one principle concerning theory choice, Ockham’s Razor, with another: the Laser. Whilst the Razor tells us not to multiply entities beyond necessity, the Laser tells us only to avoid multiplying fundamental entities beyond necessity. There appear to be seven arguments in the literature for the Laser. They divide into three categories: arguments from the nature of non-fundamentality attempt to motivate the Laser by appeal to various observations about what it is to be non-fundamental; arguments from cases describe hypothetical or actual cases, and allege that only the Laser accords with our intuitive judgements about them; and arguments from analogy claim that ontological parsimony is analogous to conceptual economy, and that this analogy recommends the Laser. I provide novel responses to each of the extant arguments for the Laser, and conclude that there is currently no good reason for replacing the Razor with the Laser.

近年来，遇到哲学家提出建议，将一种理论选择原则（奥克汉姆的《剃刀》）替换为另一种理论：《激光》已经变得司空见惯。剃刀告诉我们不要超出必要性之外的实体，而镭射告诉我们只是要避免超出必要性的基础实体。关于激光，文献中似乎有七个论点。他们分为三类：非基本性的论点试图通过呼吁人们对激光是非基本的各种看法来激发激光。案例的论点描述了假设的或实际的案例，并声称只有Laser符合我们对它们的直觉判断；类推论证的论点声称，本体论简约性类似于概念经济学，并且这个比喻建议使用Laser。我对Laser的每个现有论据都提出了新颖的回应，并得出结论，目前没有充分的理由将Laser替换为Razor。