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Notes
See especially John Broome’s Weighing Goods (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995), Ethics out of Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and Weighing Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) in which he discusses many insightful and plausible examples of the need to weigh competing values or goods against each other in ethics, politics and economics. The belief that some value conflicts should be resolved by determining the comparative weights of the relevant values is common amongst philosophers. For other examples, see Farrelly, “Justice in Ideal Theory: A Refutation,” Political Studies 55 (2007): 844–864; Goodin, “Political Ideals and Political Practice,” British Journal of Political Science 25 (1995): 37–56; Kamm, “Deciding Whom to Help, Health-Adjusted Life Years and Disabilities,” in Anand, Peter and Sen (eds.), Public Health, Ethics, and Equity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 225–242; Robeyns, “Ideal Theory in Theory and Practice,” Social Theory and Practice 34 (2008): 341–362; Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1930); Sen, “Incompleteness and Reasoned Choice,” Synthese 140 (2004): 43–59; Swift, “The Value of Philosophy in Nonideal Circumstances,” Social Theory and Practice 34 (2008): 363–387; Mason, “Just Constraints,” British Journal of Political Science 34 (2004): 251–268. Where this essay speaks about conflicting human interests, principles, ethical demands or rights, it is assumed that they concern conflicts between the human values on which they are based.
John Rawls, “Social unity and primary goods,” in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 161. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice; revised edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 37.
Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 26.
James Griffin, On Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 66.
See John Broome, “Is Incommensurability Vagueness?” in Ruth Chang (ed), Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 67–89; Ruth Chang, “The Possibility of Parity,” in Ethics 112 (2002): 659–688; Ruth Chang, Making Comparisons Count (New York: Routledge, 2002); Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
A definition of incommensurability is given in footnote 16.
See Chang, “The Possibility of Parity”; Ruth Chang, Making Comparisons Count.
Using Griffin’s words quoted above.
See Broome, “Is Incommensurability Vagueness?”.
See Chang, “The Possibility of Parity”; Chang, Making Comparisons Count.
I have chosen this example because I think it is a typical instance of conflicting values that requires us to weigh them against each other. Readers who do not agree may take other examples that, according to them, do require us to weigh conflicting values against each other, for instance, examples mentioned in section 3 or described by Broome. See Broome, Weighing Goods; Broome, Ethics out of Economics; Broome, Weighing Lives. As I argue in section 3, the arguments adduced with respect to the present example can be similarly adduced to other examples of conflicting values. See also footnote 29.
Andrew Clapham, Human Rights, A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), chp. 6.
‘Extra amount of privacy’: the difference in amount of privacy between P and E. ‘Extra amount of economic benefit’: the difference in amount of economic benefit between E and P.
One might object that, also if the first and third condition do not apply, a decision between the options need not always be a question of weighing. For instance, Henry Richardson, Practical Reasoning about Final Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 304, has shown how, in some cases, competing options bearing incommensurable values may be reconciled by looking for, what he calls, “mutual fit,” so that the need of weighing incommensurable values can be avoided. The present paper concerns decisions between options of which we assume that they cannot be completely reconciled or optimally realized together. For other possible objections see section 7.
These relative weights (roughly) indicate how many times larger or smaller the weight of a particular amount of one value (V 1 ) is, compared to the weight of a particular amount of the other value (V 2 ). These (rough) cardinal relative weights should be distinguished from what might be called ordinal relative weights – relative weights in general terms (ranked on a list), such as more weight or less weight without indicating how many times larger or smaller the weight is. The distinction between cardinal relative weight and ordinal relative weight is similar to the distinction between cardinal and ordinal comparisons. In this paper the phrase relative weights is used in the sense of cardinal relative weights. As we will discuss below, ordinal relative weights of competing values are often insufficiently helpful to resolve decision problems similar to that concerning the Heathrow issue. Indeed, if the weight of privacy is expressed in ordinal instead of cardinal terms (say, privacy is more important than economic benefit) and we do not know how much more important privacy is, it is unclear whether a (somewhat) larger amount of privacy outweighs a (much) larger amount of economic benefit.
Two values are incommensurable if and only if they have different dimensions that cannot be reduced to one dimension so that their amounts cannot be measured and compared on a common cardinal scale of units of value.
Chang calls this fourth value relation parity (see Chang, The Possibility of Parity). There is a difference between Chang’s explanation of the fourth value relation and the conception of the fourth value relation defended in the present paper. Chang understands the fourth value relation as imprecise cardinal equality – a value relation within the domain of complete comparability (see Chang, Making Comparisons Count, p. 145). In this paper I defend the thesis that the fourth value relation under consideration excludes equality, including imprecise equality or rough equality. This is emphasized in the phrase ‘not even rough equality,’ which suggests that the fourth value relation concerns incomplete comparability (see section 4, below).
Objective and impartial in the sense of inter-subjective, non-subjective and not crucially dependent on personal preferences, predilections and merely personal intuitions or opinions. See also footnote 41.
See John Broome, “Is Incommensurability Vagueness?”.
Raz, The Morality of Freedom, chp. 13.
Cf. Ross, The Right and the Good, p. 154, who similarly argues that it is unintelligible how any amount of a particular value could be equal in value to any amount of a fundamentally different, incommensurable value. In his Ethics (Penguin Books, 1978), Aristotle succinctly summarizes the problem: “Without commensurability, no equality” (p. 185). Only strict trichotomists assume the existence of a level of equivalence between heterogeneous values. In Chang, Incommensurability, Incomparability and Practical Reason only one of the 13 contributors, Donald Regan, adheres to the trichotomy thesis (the thesis that there are only three positive value relations: better than, worse than, and equally good as). It is true that, although the other 12 contributors do not believe in the existence of a precise level of equivalence, this does not yet mean that they do not believe in rough equivalence either. However, Chang and Derek Parfit (see his On What Matters, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), two leading philosophers in the relevant field, recognize that, what they call impreciseness may be very large, which entails the absence of even rough equality and the presence of the large improvement phenomenon. One might argue that reducing disparate values to a common measure, for instance, intrinsic value – as proposed by Fred Feldman – could resolve the relevant problem because it could assume the existence of equivalence in intrinsic value. See Feldman, “Adjusting Utility for Justice: A Consequentialist Reply to the Objection from Justice,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1995): 567–585. However, this approach is equally susceptible to the claims made in the present essay, because it does not resolve the problem of measuring and comparing amounts of conflicting incommensurable values if we cannot make use of a single one-dimensional cardinal scale. Unlike the common measure of pleasure of classical utilitarianism, the common measure of intrinsic value is complex and multifaceted instead of simple and one-dimensional. This creates a problem if the relevant disparate values clash as in the examples mentioned in this essay.
Below I will adduce two additional arguments to further support this claim.
The argument for the existence of the large improvement phenomenon is analogous to, and borrowed from, the argument for the existence of a small improvement phenomenon. See Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 430–431; Griffin, “Incommensurability: What’s the problem?” in Chang, Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, pp. 262–263, fn. 11; and Griffin, Well-Being (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), chapter 6; Chang, “The Possibility of Parity,” pp. 659–688. Still the latter phenomenon should be clearly distinguished from the former one, because the two phenomena are signs of different things, which have considerably different consequences for practical reason. A small improvement phenomenon is a sign of imprecise comparability and imprecise or rough equality. The large improvement phenomenon, by contrast, is a sign of what might be called incomplete comparability and entails the absence of any, even imprecise, level of equivalence. See section 4.
See E. Nord, “The Trade-Off Between Severity of Illness and Treatment Effect in Cost-Value Analysis of Health Care,” Health Policy 24 (1993): 227–238.
Health benefit of 1 QALY means that the relevant medical treatment adds 1 quality adjusted life year to a patient’s life.
See also footnote 21 above.
D. W. Brock, (2006) “Ethical Issues in the Use of Cost Effectiveness Analysis for the Prioritisation of Health Care Resources,” in Anand, Peter and Sen (eds.), Public Health, Ethics, and Equity, pp. 201–223.
N. Daniels and J. Sabin, “Limits to Health Care: Fair Procedures, Democratic Deliberation, and the Legitimacy Problem for Insurers,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 26 (1997): 303–350.
Cf. also Rawls about weighing the two competing values of the aggregative-distributive dichotomy – efficiency versus equity – in the distribution of welfare: “[V]ery different weightings are consistent with these principles” (see Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 34). Interpersonal differences in the assignment of weights and disagreement about the right weights are, of course, not a demonstration of the absence of an impartially or objectively right answer, but, conversely, if it is true that such an answer does not exist or that reason under-determines the answer, it is obvious that rational disagreement about the right answer easily occurs.
Raz, The Morality of Freedom.
Two values are symmetrical if neither value is definitely more important than, or lexically prior to, the other.
See Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 32–34, 279.
Rationally under-determinable in the sense that reason partly determines, but also largely under-determines, the weights. It determines which weights are rationally eligible but it does not determine which weight of the divergent rationally eligible weights is the right or better one. I borrow the notion rational under-determinability from Raz. See Raz, The Morality of Freedom.
Cf. Sen, “Incompleteness and Reasoned Choice,” Synthese 140 (2004): 55, 56 and footnotes 27 and 28, p. 59.
A cardinal scale measures (differences in) amounts of values in quantities of units of value. An ordinal scale is a ranking on a list (e.g. in terms of less value, more value, much more value, et cetera) without indicating how much the amounts of value differ in quantities of units of value.
The implications for practical reason are as follows. I think Chang is right that, if two options are incomparable, the choice cannot be rationally justified. In line with this thought I think that, if two options are incompletely comparable, the choice can only be incompletely rationally justified (that is, partially justified in the sense that the chosen option is not worse than the non-chosen one, but not completely justified in the sense that the chosen option is better than, or at least equally good as, the non-chosen one). Chang, by contrast, believes that the choice between options to which the fourth value relation applies can be completely rationally justified, because she thinks that the relevant options are completely comparable. See Chang, ‘Introduction,’ in Chang (ed.), Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. See also Chang, “The Possibility of Parity” and her Making Comparisons Count, p. 145.
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, pp. 430–432.
Because incomplete comparability is a gradual phenomenon, there are cases of incomplete comparability that resemble cases of imprecise equality.
Bi-directionality of two values: one option contains a larger amount of one value, while the other option contains a larger amount of the other value. Even if the amounts of these values were precisely measurable, this would not make any difference for their incomplete comparability.
Griffin, “Incommensurability: What’s the problem?” pp. 262–3, fn. 11.
As mentioned above, objective and impartial are used in the sense of inter-subjective, non-subjective and not crucially dependent on personal preferences, predilections and merely personal intuitions or opinions. Individuals need not experience great difficulties in (intuitively and implicitly) assigning rough relative weights and to make a personal comparative assessment, dependent on their personal backgrounds, predilections and beliefs. However, as discussed above, where the fourth value relation applies, the options seem to be impersonally/objectively incompletely comparable. Compare the discussion of the phrase impersonally/objectively incommensurable in Broome, Ethics out of Economics, pp. 158–161, and Raz, Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): “… impersonally the conflicting considerations are incommensurate,” p. 243. But even for individual persons the assignment of weights may be difficult because they too may regard the relevant options as being incompletely comparable. That is why, at different moments, the same individual may assign different weights to the same values in the same context. Of course, these intra-individual differences are less large than inter-individual differences (see Nord, “The Trade-Off Between Severity of Illness and Treatment Effect in Cost-Value Analysis of Health Care”).
The notion deliberation literally means weighing; libra is the Latin name for pair of scales. In other words, rational deliberation consists of rationally weighing the pros and cons and balancing competing reasons. Where reason under-determines the weights and the final decision, it is not to be expected that rational deliberation will lead to rational consensus.
Again, interpersonal disagreement is, of course, not a demonstration of the absence of an impartially or objectively right answer, but, conversely, if it is true that such an answer does not exist or that reason under-determines the answer, it is obvious that rational disagreement about the right answer easily occurs.
Cf. Clapham, Human Rights, p. 114: “There is plenty of room for different people, different judges even, to come to different conclusions.”.
Ibid., pp. 114–115.
See Cass R. Sunstein, David Schkade, Lisa M. Ellman, and Andres Sawicki, Are Judges Political? An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2006).
See Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, pp. 279–290; Dworkin, A Matter of Principle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 119–45; Dworkin, “Indeterminacy in law,” in T. Honderich (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 399.
Dworkin, “Indeterminacy in Law,” p. 399.
Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, pp. 286–287.
Another example of ignoring or overlooking the fourth value relation can be found in P.E. Veel, “Incommensurability, Proportionality and Rational Legal Decision-Making,” Law and Ethics of Human Rights 4 (2010): 178–228.
Cf. Broome, Ethics out of Economics, chp. 9.
See footnote 14.
See Rawls, A Theory of Justice.
See Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009).
See Martijn Boot, “The Aim of a Theory of Justice,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (2012): 7–21. There is no room for further substantiating these doubts. The objections to which they respond are not unimportant but, I think, less relevant in the context of the aim of this essay (see the next sentences).
See the quotations in the introduction.
See the introduction and footnote 1.
G. A. Cohen has commented on this omission as follows: “Philosophers sometimes end their articles by saying this sort of thing: ‘It is a task for future work to determine the weight of the consideration that I have exposed.’ But nobody ever gets around to that further work. They wish they could, but they can’t… Nobody knows how to balance different values against one another…” Cohen, “Rescuing Conservatism: A Defence of Existing Value,” lecture presented at the University of Toronto (2008). Rawls is, to some extent, an exception (see Rawls, A Theory of Justice; see also R. Hardin, (2003) Indeterminacy and Society (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003), chp. 7: ‘Indeterminate Justice’). However, Rawls ranks the principles of justice according to a scheme of lexical priorities, which avoids, rather than resolves, the problem of relative weight assignment. The values under consideration in this essay are more or less symmetrical so that they do not lend themselves to a lexical ordering.
Acknowledgments
The paper results from my research at Oxford University (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council), where I wrote my DPhil dissertation on implications of incomplete comparability for questions of comparative justice (supervisor G. A. Cohen). John Broome, Ruth Chang, Derek Parfit, Joseph Raz and Henry Richardson have commented on earlier versions of the present text, in which I make use, and further develop, their insights. I incorporated their valuable comments. Finally, I would like to thank an anonymous referee for constructive comments.
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Boot, M. The Right Balance. J Value Inquiry 51, 13–32 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-016-9551-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-016-9551-z