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A Dominance Argument Against Incompleteness

Bibliographic Data

ID10695400
AuthorsChristian Tarsney (0000-0002-6324-7145, University of Toronto), Harvey Lederman (0000-0001-9438-097X, The University of Texas at Austin), Dean Spears (0000-0001-7905-9192, The University of Texas at Austin)
Year2025
Volume134
Issue4
Pages455-490
Publication date2025-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00318108-11964820
OpenAlexW4414692400
LanguageFR
Citations received1
References cited30

This article presents a new argument against many forms of moral and prudential value incompleteness. The argument relies on two central principles: (i) a weak “negative dominance” principle, to the effect that lottery 1 is better than lottery 2 only if some possible outcome of lottery 1 is better than some possible outcome of lottery 2, and (ii) a weak form of ex ante Pareto, to the effect that, if lottery 1 gives an unambiguously better (stochastically dominant) prospect to some individuals than lottery 2, and equally good prospects to everyone else, then lottery 1 is better than lottery 2. Given modest auxiliary assumptions, these two principles rule out incompleteness in the prudential ranking of individual lives, and many forms of incompleteness in the moral rankings of outcomes and lotteries

Argument (complex analysis) · Dominance (genetics) · Ex-ante · Lottery · Outcome (game theory) · Ranking (information retrieval) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science

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Unique citing works1
Citations per year1
Citation span2026 - 2026 (1)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 1
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