A Dominance Argument Against Incompleteness

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10695400
AutoresChristian 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)
Ano2025
Volume134
Fascículo4
Páginas455-490
Data de publicação2025-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00318108-11964820
OpenAlexW4414692400
IdiomaFR
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas30

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