Rationality, comparability and maximization

Mozaffar Qizilbash ()

Economics and Philosophy, 2002, vol. 18, issue 1, 141-156

Abstract: James Griffin (1986, 1997, 2000) and Ruth Chang (1997) have argued that alternatives (and values) can be comparable when it is neither true that one is better than the other, nor true that they are exactly equal in value. The relation which holds between them has gone under various names: the alternatives are ‘roughly equal in value’ (Griffin) or ‘on a par’ (Chang). In this paper, I give a formal analysis of this relation. This analysis allows us to distinguish between two slightly different notions of ‘at least as good as’. It is argued that the distinction between these notions is important for discussions of rationality, as is the distinction between ‘rough equality’ or ‘parity’ and incomparability.

Date: 2002
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