The Good, the Bad, and the Transitivity of Better Than*

Abstract

The Rachels-Temkin spectrum arguments against the transitivity of better than involve good or bad experiences, lives, or outcomes that vary along multiple dimensions-e.g., duration and intensity of pleasure or pain. This paper presents variations on these arguments involving combinations of good and bad experiences, which have even more radical implications than the violation of transitivity. These variations force opponents of transitivity to conclude that something good is worse than something that isn't good, on pain of rejecting the good altogether. That is impossible, so we must reject the spectrum arguments. According toThe Transitivity of Better Than: For any bearers of value A, B, and C, if A is better than B, all things considered, and B is better than C, all things considered, then A is better than C, all things considered.

Non-transitive Better than Relations and Rational Choice

“…This type of argument, sometimes called 'Spectrum Arguments', has been applied to different areas, and intuitions that support the premises can be found in many fields (cf. Handfield and Rabinowicz 2017;Nebel 2018;Temkin 2012). Population ethicists have applied it to outcomes with populations of different sizes and well-being levels to illustrate how intuitions and widely held normative beliefs in this area seem to support non-transitive better than relations (cf.…”

Spectrum arguments and hypersensitivity

“…The pony tail is due to Hare. 21 A partial list of philosophers who have raised this objection or very similar: Qizilbash (2005), Wasserman (2005) ms, Voorhoeve and Binmore (2006), Hare (2015) ms, Thomas (2016), Nebel (2017. 22 Temkin (2012, Sect.…”

Spectrum Arguments, Parity and Persistency

“…Is there for any population of people with very good lives some much larger population with lives that are barely worth living that is better? So-called "Spectrum Arguments" suggest the answer is Yes, and philosophers have tried to resist this conclusion since the 1980s (e.g., Parfit, 1984Parfit, , 2016Temkin, 1987Temkin, , 2012Norcross, 1997;Rachels, 1998;Broome, 2004;Nebel, 2018Nebel, , 2019Herlitz, 2019). This article examines the proposal that parity can help one refute Spectrum Arguments, shows that this only works if one interprets parity in a specific way, and identifies some consequences of that discovery for the general debate on Spectrum Arguments, value theory and comparability problems.…”