Spectrum arguments and hypersensitivity

Pummer, Theron

doi:10.1007/s11098-017-0932-3

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…13 Though of course Transitivity has its opponents (Rachels 1998, Temkin 2012. For defenses of Transitivity against the arguments of Rachels and Temkin, see Binmore and Voorhoeve (2003), Broome (2006), Huemer (2013), Nebel (2018) and Pummer (2017).…”

Section: Preferencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…13 Though of course Transitivity has its opponents (Temkin 2012;Rachels 1998). For defenses of Transitivity against the arguments of Rachels and Temkin, see Nebel (2018); Broome (2006); Huemer (2013); Pummer (2017); Binmore (2003). 14 Though this move would seem odd for those who accept Preferences as Dispositions as one tenet of a larger behaviourist outlook.…”

Section: E N D N O T E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

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Consequences of comparability

Dorr¹,

Nebel²,

Zuehl³

2021

Philosophical Perspectives

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We defend three claims about preference, credence, and choice. First, all agents (not just rational ones) have complete preferences. Second, all agents (again, not just rational ones) have real-valued credences in every proposition in which they are confident to any degree. Third, there is almost always some unique thing we ought to do, want, or believe.These claims may seem absurd. But as we will show, they follow from certain hard-to-resist premises by a principle of the logic of comparatives that we call Comparability. This principle requires, to a first approximation, that if two things are not equally 𝐹, then one must be more 𝐹 than the other. Although many philosophers have rejected Comparability, it is widely assumed in the semantics literature on gradable adjectives and other comparative expressions. In a companion paper (Dorr, Nebel, and Zuehl 2021) we defend its validity. In the present paper, we take Comparability for granted and use it to argue for further controversial conclusions. Of course, those who reject these conclusions may prefer to read the present paper as providing a further battery of modus tollens arguments to back up the putative counterexamples that have already convinced so many philosophers to reject Comparability. But we argue, in each case, that the consequences of Comparability are less implausible than they might initially seem.We provide the necessary background in section 1. The rest of the paper draws out our central claims for preference, credence, and choice. COMPARATIVES AND COMPARABILITYComparative constructions include, paradigmatically, the comparative forms of adjectives ('more 𝐹' or '𝐹-er') and the equative form ('[at least] as 𝐹 as'). We are concerned with the logic of such constructions. Here are some examples of valid schemas involving comparative constructions:Strict Comparison 𝑥 is more 𝐹 than 𝑦 if and only if 𝑥 is at least as 𝐹 as 𝑦 and 𝑦 is not at least as 𝐹 as 𝑥.Equality 𝑥 and 𝑦 are equally 𝐹 if and only if 𝑥 is at least as 𝐹 as 𝑦 and 𝑦 is at least as 𝐹 as 𝑥.

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Section: Preferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: E N D N O T E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of comparability

Dorr¹,

Nebel²,

Zuehl³

2021

Philosophical Perspectives

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“…Principle, since the principle does not follow from the example itself; rather, it is grounded 52 For related recent discussions of Temkin's argument, see Nebel (2017) and Pummer (2017). And for suggestions for further reading, see Nebel (2017), fn.…”

Section: Things Are Different In the Case Of Chang's Small Unidimensimentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sorites Paradox in Practical Philosophy

2019

The Sorites Paradox

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“…4 Early sequence arguments were formulated by Temkin (1996), Norcross (1997), and Rachels (1998). More recent work has been done by, e.g., Temkin (2012), Arrhenius and Rabinowicz (2015), Handfield and Rabinowicz (2018), Nebel (2018), Pummer (2018), and Jensen (2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Many-valued logic and sequence arguments in value theory

Knutsson

2021

Synthese

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Some find it plausible that a sufficiently long duration of torture is worse than any duration of mild headaches. Similarly, it has been claimed that a million humans living great lives is better than any number of worm-like creatures feeling a few seconds of pleasure each. Some have related bad things to good things along the same lines. For example, one may hold that a future in which a sufficient number of beings experience a lifetime of torture is bad, regardless of what else that future contains, while minor bad things, such as slight unpleasantness, can always be counterbalanced by enough good things. Among the most common objections to such ideas are sequence arguments. But sequence arguments are usually formulated in classical logic. One might therefore wonder if they work if we instead adopt many-valued logic. I show that, in a common many-valued logical framework, the answer depends on which versions of transitivity are used as premises. We get valid sequence arguments if we grant any of several strong forms of transitivity of ‘is at least as bad as’ and a notion of completeness. Other, weaker forms of transitivity lead to invalid sequence arguments. The plausibility of the premises is largely set aside here, but I tentatively note that almost all of the forms of transitivity that lead to valid sequence arguments seem intuitively problematic. Still, a few moderately strong forms of transitivity that might be acceptable lead to valid sequence arguments, although weaker statements of the initial value claims avoid these arguments at least to some extent.

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Spectrum arguments and hypersensitivity

Cited by 13 publications

References 23 publications

Consequences of comparability

Consequences of comparability

The Sorites Paradox in Practical Philosophy

Many-valued logic and sequence arguments in value theory

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