Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

BETTERNESS, SPECTRUM CASES AND THE CHALLENGE TO TRANSITIVITY IN AXIOLOGY
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better than others. Some of those who defend this idea may simply say that
global betterness is not transitive with local betterness. But others may reject
altogether the idea of global betterness. Finally, there may be others who
accept that notion but, when faced with a set of options in which our preferences
are intransitive, fail to see any reason to consider any of them the best
option. For them, any alternative within the spectrum can be chosen.
In fact, those who hold this view face the same problem when it comes
to any set of intransitive preferences. In order to avoid the risk of being
money-pumped, they would have to arbitrarily stop at some point. In the
same vein, when asked to choose some alternative among all the ones available
in the spectrum, they may choose any of them arbitrarily.
(ii) Primacy of principles. If we think our decision must be guided by
the two principles that apply here (that is, the minimization of the duration
and the intensity of the pain) we will reject a ponderation of our preferences
such as the one made above, which is based merely on our intuitions
towards particular outcomes. Our decision will be made, rather, in accordance
to how we think that the two diff erent dimension of (dis)value that are
at stake here (quantity and quality of pain) are to be combined.
If we think they need to be considered on equal grounds, without any
of them trumping over the other one at any time, the only possible solution
available to us is A 1 (see for instance Norcross, 1998).
If we assume that the combination of the two criteria in question here
(quality and quantity of pain) must be carried out in accordance to the critical
levels approach, our conclusion will be diff erent. We may then think
that there is a value p that x may have, such that for any value of x which is
lower than p, quantity and quality of pain can be traded, but for any value
of x which is equal to or higher than p, quantity of pain is a trump. And,
equally, we may think that there is another value q that x may have such
that for any value of x higher than q, quantity and quality of pain can be
traded, but for any value of x equal to or lower than q, quality of pain is a
trump – this can be defended either because the absolute (dis)value of the
quality and quantity of the pain which corresponds to A p and A q or because
of the diff erence in pain between, say, A 1 and A p and A q and A n . So the best
options would be those higher than A p and lower than A q . And it appears
to be the case that A p >A p+1 >A p+2 > … >A q-2 >A q-1 >A q . Given this, A p would be
the best option.
Th is entails that the better outcome is not the one in which we experience
some very mild pain for a long time, but one in which we undergo
some more signifi cant pain (though not really like terrible torture) for a
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 135 05-01-2012 09:38:26