Stuart Rachels and Temkin acknowledge that abandoning transitivity generates what they call 'essentially comparative' value, yet this move simply relocates rather than resolves the underlying tension between quantity and quality of welfare.

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Reasons For

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Reason for

1.Transitivity assumes value comparisons follow mathematical logic, but welfare involves incommensurable dimensions that resist linear ordering.
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2.Abandoning transitivity reveals rather than creates the problem: quality-quantity tensions exist independently of which formal framework we adopt.
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3.Essentially comparative value honestly reflects that some welfare trade-offs lack principled resolution, which relocating the tension actually acknowledges.
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Reasons Against

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Reason against

1.If essentially comparative value merely relocates tensions, it provides no practical guidance for actual welfare decisions—it just accepts incoherence.
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2.Rejecting transitivity to preserve quality-quantity distinctions abandons logical consistency without gaining explanatory power about welfare itself.
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Key Terms

Essentially comparative value(what results from abandoning transitivity): The idea that something's worth or goodness can only be measured by directly comparing it to something else, rather than having a fixed, independent value.
Quantity and quality of welfare(the core tension being discussed): Quantity refers to how much well-being someone has (more happiness is better), while quality refers to what *kind* of well-being it is (some say deep satisfaction matters more than simple pleasure).
Stuart Rachels(mentioned as someone studying welfare and value): A contemporary philosopher who writes about ethics and how we should think about what makes life good or bad.
Temkin(mentioned as a collaborator with Rachels on this problem): Larry Temkin, a philosopher who specializes in ethics and has written extensively about fairness, equality, and how to compare different outcomes.
knowledge(Distinguished from mere true belief, which may be the product of indoctrination and need not exercise deliberative capacities.): Justified true belief — true belief that has been arrived at through the exercise of deliberative capacities, including comparison of and deliberation among alternatives.
transitivity(Applied to the temporal relation 'earlier than' on a set of worlds W): A property of a relation R such that if wRv and vRu, then wRu
welfare(Critique of Stein's strict health-welfare correlation): A subjective notion of well-being that is affected by multiple domains, not health alone.

Connections

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Consequentialism1 linked Philosophy of Language1 linked

Abandoning transitivity reveals rather than creates the problem: quality-quantit...Essentially comparative value honestly reflects that some welfare trade-offs lac...

Details

Type: claim
Perspectives: 2 (1 for, 1 against)
Edits: 1 edit