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The Main Argument for Value Incommensurability (and Why It Fails)
Author(s) -
Ellis Stephen
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2008.tb00068.x
Subject(s) - ceteris paribus , mistake , argument (complex analysis) , outcome (game theory) , value (mathematics) , perspective (graphical) , epistemology , positive economics , philosophy , social psychology , psychology , economics , mathematical economics , mathematics , computer science , political science , law , statistics , artificial intelligence , biochemistry , chemistry
Abstract Arguments for value incommensurability ultimately depend on a certain diagnosis of human motivation. Incommensurablists hold that each person's basic ends are not only irreducible but also incompatible with one another. It isn't merely that some goals can't, in fact, be jointly realized; values actually compete for influence. This account makes a mistake about the nature of human motivation. Each value underwrites a ceteris paribus evaluation. Such assessments are mutually compatible because the observation that there is something to be said for an outcome from a particular perspective allows for any ultimate evaluation of that outcome; Values can be irreducible without thereby being incommensurable.