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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Monist theories can be pluralist at the level of ordinary choice by positing intermediate values that derive their worth from a single foundational value

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Intermediate values that derive worth entirely from a foundational value are merely instrumental, not genuinely valuable in themselves.
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    • 2.If knowledge is only valuable because it produces pleasure, then knowledge-without-pleasure has zero value, which contradicts strong intuitions defended by G.E. Moore in Principia Ethica.
      ?

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    • 3.A theory that denies intrinsic value to intermediate goods is monist at every level that matters morally, making pluralism at the choice level a superficial relabeling.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Incommensurability between values like friendship and justice cannot be dissolved by reducing both to a common currency without distorting practical reasoning, as Ruth Chang has argued.
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    • 2.If intermediate values were truly derivable from one foundational value, rational agents should always be able to rank them cardinally, but agents routinely face genuine tragic dilemmas with no dominant option.
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    • 3.The persistence of tragic choice, documented from Sophocles through Bernard Williams, constitutes empirical evidence that pluralism at the choice level reflects irreducible foundational plurality, not mere complexity.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Some theories claim there is fundamentally one value, such as pleasure
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    • 2.These same theories claim that intermediate values such as knowledge and beauty are valuable because of the amount of pleasure they produce, realize, or contain
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    • 3.Pluralism at the level of ordinary choice is compatible with monism at the foundational level
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