Abstract
By distinguishing between contributory values and overall value, and by arguing that contributory values are variable values insofar as they contribute diminishing marginal overall value, this article helps to establish the superiority of a certain kind of maximizing, value-pluralist axiology over both sufficientarianism and prioritarianism, as well as over all varieties of value-monism, including utilitarianism and pure egalitarianism.
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Notes
Rawls (1971, p. 302).
Ibid.
For the distinction between pure and pluralist egalitarianism, see Parfit (1995).
Neither traditional Kantianism nor virtue ethics appears to be an obviously reliable guide to the choice of public policy. Instead, the appraisal of policies seems to require a normative theory that is, at least in large measure, consequentialist.
I presume that David Lewis would not have taken issue with the following strategy, given that he writes: “The canonical way to find out whether something is a value requires a difficult imaginative exercise. And if you are to be sure of your answer, you need to be sure that you have gained the fullest imaginative acquaintance that is humanly possible. A tall order! You had better settle for less. Approximate the canonical test. Try hard to imagine how it would be if the putative value were (or were not) realised. Hope that your acquaintance comes close enough to the fullest possible that getting closer would not change your response. Then you may take your valuing as fallible evidence that you were acquainted with a genuine value, or your indifference as fallible evidence that you were not” Lewis (1989, p. 122). However, “[t]he fact that vivid imaginative awareness leads us to value something is at most a prima facie reason to consider it valuable. Critical reflection on the deliverances of imagination can and often should overturn patterns of evaluation which even very vivid and complete imaginative awareness prompts” Johnson (1989, p. 151; and also see ibid., pp. 162–163). This notwithstanding, it may be the case that Johnson would erroneously rule out some important values because of his apparent failure to distinguish between contributory values and overall value. See § 3, below.
This is, of course, the possible world referred to in a plausible version of the famous Repugnant Conclusion. While the world referred to in the Repugnant Conclusion need not, necessarily, be depicted as an egalitarian society, this is one form which it could easily take. Indeed, if the Repugnant Conclusion is to do the work for which it has been traditionally deployed, then it had better not muddy the waters by needlessly triggering egalitarian concerns. Hence, it seems preferable to interpret the world of the Repugnant Conclusion as a society that is free from inequality. For one depiction of the Repugnant Conclusion, see Parfit (1986, pp. 148–150).
If it is thought that what actually provokes our concern when contemplating the second scenario is the small total quantity of utility that this possible world contains, rather than its small number of worthwhile lives, see § 9, below.
See Carter (forthcoming).
For a discussion of the Average View, see Attfield (1991, pp. 117–118).
But this does not entail that the level of average utility is not a value. C.f.: “In addressing the prior question of what values there are, counting the cost is a distraction to be resisted” Lewis (1989, p. 125).
This is why I considered each scenario in turn, for “[g]enuine values might be unattainable, or unattainable without undue sacrifice of other values. An ideal balancer of values needs thorough knowledge of the terms of trade. An ideal valuer may be better off without it. Our present business is not with the balancing, but with the prior question of what values there are to balance” Lewis (1989, p. 124). I turn to the question of balancing values in § 10, below.
What is “overall value”? Perhaps I might be permitted to quote at length from what I have remarked elsewhere: “it might be a simple, unanalyzable, nonnatural but real property. It might be a natural property that is not reducible to other natural properties. It might be what a fully rational and fully informed version of ourselves would desire that we, as we are in certain respects, desire. It might be construed as the subjective preferences of an individual evaluator. It might be what the majority of the members of a culture judge favorably. It might be what merits a certain response in an evaluator sensitized to the saliency of the morally relevant features. It might be the strength of a pro-attitude. Or it might simply be a fiction projected onto the world as a result of our nature (perhaps ‘tinged’ with the evaluator’s culture or modified by intersubjective adjustments). It might be something else altogether” Carter (forthcoming). Given the seemingly irresolvable disagreements between metaethicists, my current endeavor is to develop an axiology that is as metaethically neutral as possible so that it is compatible with a realist, subjectivist, cultural relativist, sensibility theorist, emotivist, norm-expressivist, quasi-realist or error-theoretic metaethic. However, I should perhaps add that my own penchant is for the latter—namely, for some form of error-theoretic, in contrast to quasi-realist, projectivism. See Carter (2000) and Carter (2004a).
For some instances where monetary increases might fail to result in diminishing marginal utility, see Frankfurt (1988, pp. 138–144).
For the significance of urgency, see Scanlon (1975). I say more about “urgency” in the next section.
See Scanlon (1975).
See Frankfurt (1988, pp. 144–116).
See Carter (2002).
See Parfit (1995).
Thus: “There are values, lots of them…” Lewis (1989, p. 137).
It is possible that “equality” stands for a composite of several values. See Carter (2002). It is also possible that “average utility” also stands for a composite of several values, or “average perfectionism” might be the contributory value rather than “average utility.” See Hurka (1993, pp. 71–75). I thank Jon Tresan and Kirk Ludwig for initially pressing me on this point. Moreover, it is possible that “number of worthwhile lives” stands as a proxy for a contributory value that increases pari passu with increases in the number of worthwhile lives. I thank Luc Bovens for initially pressing me on this point.
Some nevertheless resist the claim that the number of worthwhile lives is a value. But two considerations should be borne in mind: First, increasing the number of worthwhile lives conjures up images of an overcrowded world. But that would be a world with a low level of average utility, and that might be what triggers the resistance. Second, we can increase the number of worthwhile human lives by extending our stay in the universe. The greater the number of generations, the greater the number of worthwhile lives. Increasing the number of worthwhile lives can, in other words, be accomplished diachronically rather than synchronically. Put another way, we don’t have to cram everyone onto the world at the same time. See Attfield (1991, pp. 127–128).
I say this for ease of exposition. In fact it is the possible world represented by a point on a curve in Fig. 1 that contains value.
If this is not immediately obvious, see Carter (forthcoming) for a full explication.
Note: I am not claiming that we should go around killing people. There may, for example, be deontological constraints on what we may do—see Carter (forthcoming)—or the widespread fear that one might be one of those sacrificed for the general good might greatly lower the level of average utility. Deontic injunctions cannot be directly read off from an axiology. The axiology merely tells us which world is best. What we ought to do morally once we know which world is best is quite another matter. See, for example, Carter (2009) for a defense of the indirect consequentialism advanced by John Stuart Mill. And were we to replace Mill’s value-monistic axiology with the axiology presented here, we could then construct a form of indirect, multidimensional consequentialism.
Again, I say this for ease of exposition. With respect to Fig. 2, it is the possible world represented by a point on a plane that contains value.
That a point can be closer to the origin than another point and yet contain more value can be easily seen in Fig. 1, where point H has more overall value than point B, even though B is further from the origin O than H. And again, if it is not obvious why any point on DE (including H) has more overall value than any point on AB (including B, of course), see Carter (forthcoming).
Thomas Hurka has argued that population size and average utility are variable values. See Hurka (1983). But he does not include equality as a contributory value.
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Carter, A. Some groundwork for a multidimensional axiology. Philos Stud 154, 389–408 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9557-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9557-5