Abstract
There is growing support for the view that there can be cases of incommensurability, understood as cases in which two alternatives, X and Y, are such that X is not better than Y, Y is not better than X, and X and Y are not equally good. This paper assumes that alternatives can be incommensurable and explores the prominent idea that, insofar as choice situations that agents face qua rational agents involve options that are not rankable as one better than the other or as equally good, the choice situations are, due to this structural feature, distinctively hard. It might seem like choosing between incommensurable alternatives is obviously distinctively hard because, unlike in other cases, in cases of incommensurability, one cannot proceed in a way that does justice to the value of each of the goods at stake by factoring their value into one’s decision. The reasoning in this paper suggests that this position is mistaken, not because there is no real challenge here, but because, insofar as a challenge has been identified, it is one that can make cases involving commensurable alternatives hard too. The paper’s reasoning also suggests that the challenge at issue can sometimes, even if not always, be overcome via effective choice over time. Although many of the illustrations focused on in the paper involve low-stakes intrapersonal cases of decisionmaking, the paper’s reasoning is, as is apparent by the end of the paper, relevant for high-stakes and population-level decision-making as well.
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Notes
See Raz (1986, chapter 13) for a pivotal classic discussion on incommensurability.
The quoted phrases are from Chang’s “Hard Choices” (2017). Although Chang would not use the term “incommensurable” in the place of “not rankable as one better than the other or as equally good”—a terminological difference that I will elaborate on in this note and that the reader should keep in mind—Chang’s work on “hard choices” is one of the cornerstones of the prominent idea that I describe, and of the related idea that all the target hard cases are cases of “parity,” which I briefly touch on later in this note. Chang’s use of the term “incommensurable” differs from Raz’s (1986, chapter 13), which is the use I follow; in particular, Chang’s use leaves room for two incommensurable options to be rankable as one better than the other or as exactly equally good (Chang 2017). Part of my reason for following Raz’s use (which is among the range of familiar uses) is because it allows me to cut back on repetitions of the relatively cumbersome phrase “neither one better than the other nor exactly equally good.” To avoid terminological disputes, those who are averse to Raz’s use of “incommensurable” can formulate my focal question not as “Are choices involving incommensurable options distinctively hard?” but as “Are choices involving options that are not rankable as one better than the other or as equally good distinctively hard”? Notably, if, as Chang (2017) maintains, choosing, “qua rational agent,” is not possible in cases of “incomparability,” then the cases of interest that remain relevant are all cases of “parity,” wherein the options are not rankable as one better than the other or as equally good, but are comparable as “on a par.” For my purposes, it is not necessary to settle this issue. For an interesting more recent contribution regarding hard choices, see, for example, Doody (2022).
Notably, according to the “permissible-attitudes” conception of incommensurability, which differs in certain important respects from the conception at issue in this paper, X and Y are incommensurable if rationality allows different agents to have different attitudes to X and Y, so that, for example, it is permissible for one agent to prefer X to Y and also permissible for another agent to prefer Y to X. According to this conception, the slice of berry pie and the slice of chocolate cake qualify as incommensurable and this evaluation does not vary depending on who is choosing between the two options; relatedly, the desserts qualify as incommensurable even if the choosing agent permissibly strongly prefers the berry pie, which, according to my usage, would make the berry pie a better option for her (other things equal). See Rabinowicz (2009) for discussion of the permissible-attitudes conception of incommensurability, including discussion of subtleties that I gloss over here. It might be suggested that the related permissible-attitudes conception of incomparability, according to which X and Y are incomparable if having a preference gap is the only permissible attitude to them (Rabinowicz 2009), captures the sort of hardness at issue in this paper. Given, however, that a preference gap is not required in cases like the cake versus pie case, focusing on the permissible-attitudes conception of incomparability would leave out at least some, if not most or all, of the cases that are of interest here.
See Chang (1997, section III.7) for a discussion of the small-improvement argument, including discussion of the argument as an argument for incomparability, which I will comment on presently. Earlier variations of the argument can be found in, for example, de Sousa (1974) and Raz (1986, chapter 13).
Ground-breaking discussion of the possibility of parity can be found in, for example, Chang (2002). For some related influential discussion concerning the possibility of two options being “imprecisely equally good,” see, for example, Parfit (2016); earlier related discussion regarding “rough comparability” can be found in Parfit (1984, 431).
For some related discussion regarding a different but related notion of incommensurability, see Cohen and Ben-Ari (1993). See also Elson (2002) for some nuanced discussion regarding the potential rationality of continued “fact-finding” (190) deliberation even “beyond the point of well-founded belief about how your options compare” (191) in both cases involving incommensurable options and cases involving commensurable options.
The quoted phrases are from Chang (2017). See note 2 for some important points regarding Chang’s position and a terminological issue the reader should keep in mind.
Again, for some related discussion regarding a different but related notion of incommensurability, see Cohen and Ben-Ari (1993).
As indicated in note 2, influential discussion concerning the possibility of two options being “imprecisely equally good” can be found in, for example, Parfit (2016).
See Andreou (2022).
Interesting discussion related to choosing between non-fungible options can be found in, for example, (Williams 1973), (Hurley 1989: Chapter 9), (Stocker 1990: Chapter 8), (Dancy 1993: Chapter 7), and (Hurka 1996). In cases involving such a choice, mourning the loss of the forgone good may be rational even if one correctly thinks that the options were rankable and that one chose the better option. Such mourning (sometimes referred to as “rational regret”) might make the choice in some sense hard even though one was appropriately decidedly set on passing up the lesser option. Although one might delineate a notion of incommensurability that counts non-fungible options as incommensurable even if they are rankable as one better than the other or as exactly equally good, I will, following Raz’s conception (1986, chapter 13), count only cases in which two options are not rankable as one better than the other or as exactly equally good as cases of incommensurability; terminology aside, the question explored in this paper is whether choice is distinctively hard in such non-rankability cases (as it is generally assumed to be). See, relatedly, note 2.
She might, as such, serve as a “value pump,” where a value pump is like a “money pump” except that the gratuitous cost incurred need not be cash. Worries regarding susceptibility to being money pumped have figured most prominently in discussions regarding cyclic preferences. See Davidson, McKinsey, and Suppes (1955) for the classic money-pump argument against cyclic preferences. Notably, for some, the money-pump argument establishes not that certain preferences or preference combinations are rationally prohibited, but that agents should not always follow their preferences. See, for example, Andreou (2007). There are, moreover, further complications that I have glossed over—including, for example, complications regarding the right way of understanding the agent’s options—that might prompt one to question the force of the current suggestion. I will not delve into the complications, since if the current suggestion is off base and cannot support the idea that choice between incommensurable options is distinctively difficult, it can be put aside altogether given the role it is supposed to play here. For some interesting discussion concerning the right way of understanding an agent’s options, see, for example, Portmore (2019).
Notably, this constraint is not quite as strong as Bratman’s more general prohibition against “brute shuffling” (Bratman 2012), which involves settling on an option and then switching to another option without a decisive reason to do so, since the constraint only prohibits (brute) shuffling when such shuffling is self-defeating in that it involves shuffling to an option that is clearly worse than another that was available.
See, for example, Raz (1986, chapter 13).
I’m not sure if there are plant-based T-bone steaks, but there are plant-based ribeye steaks that are supposed to replicate whole cuts.
See Broome (2001) for a particularly influential discussion of the case of Abraham and Isaac interpreted as a case of incommensurability.
See Setiya (2017, 56–57) for a potential example. Significantly, according to the terminology I’m using, the choice Setiya describes (which, as Setiya puts it, prompts a “sense of loss that is not unlike regret”) is between commensurable but non-fungible career options. This fits well with the next point I will be making (in the remainder of the paragraph).
See note 11 and notice that, although “rational regret” is not distinctive to cases involving incommensurable options, it might still be invariably prompted by “incommensurable values,” since, as the idea of incommensurable values is commonly used, two options can involve incommensurable values while being rankable as one better than the other and so without qualifying as incommensurable options (in the sense at issue in this paper). Consider, for example, Kieran Setiya’s case involving the choice between “hearing a lecture on a subject that interests you—interstellar travel, say, or the history of the Russian doll—and attending the birthday party of someone you recently met and would like to get to know” (2017, 58). As Setiya emphasizes, even assuming that “the value of knowledge and the value of friendship are incommensurable,” it might still be that the option of the lecture and the option of the party are rankable in relation to one another (at least relative to the choosing agent and the choice situation), with the party being justifiably ranked higher all-things-considered (2017, 58). The important thing to keep in mind for my purposes is that the hardness associated with incommensurable values and rational regret is not limited to choices involving incommensurable options. It can characterize choices involving commensurable options too.
See Tenenbaum (2020, chapter 1, especially pp. 13–14) for more on this frustrating reality.
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Acknowledgements
My thanks to John Broome, Martijn Boot, Krister Bykvist, Ruth Chang, Luke Elson, Anders Herlitz, Atay Kozlovski, Elijah Millgram, Douglas Portmore, Wlodek Rabinowicz, Mauro Rossi, Katie Steele, Sarah Stroud, Sergio Tenenbaum, Mike White, the assigned anonymous referees, and audiences at the following venues for their helpful comments on the ideas in this paper: the conference on Incommensurability and Population-Level Bioethics, Rutgers University; the workshop on Aggregation, Rational Choice, and Agency over the Lifecycle, hosted by the University of Tennessee; CRE at the University of Montreal; the workshop on Value and Agent Relativity, Switzerland; the 3NT Value Relations international colloquium series, online; the conference on Completeness and Incompleteness of Preference and Value at the University of Texas at Austin; the workshop on Normative Pluralism at the Center for Advanced Studies. The paper’s referees and Sergio Tenenbaum, who served as a commentator for the paper, are due special thanks for providing extensive written feedback that prompted key refinements in my reasoning, which affected the shape of the paper as a whole.
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Andreou, C. Incommensurability and hardness. Philos Stud (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02123-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02123-9