Trade-offs, Transitivity, and Temkin
In this essay I critically assess Larry S. Temkin’s new book, Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning. While I find that there is much to praise about this work, I focus on two points of critique. Generally, Temkin’s aims in this book are to expose a radical tension i...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Brill
2015
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In: |
Journal of moral philosophy
Year: 2015, Volume: 12, Issue: 3, Pages: 331-342 |
Further subjects: | B
Welfare
B Trade-offs B transitivity B Intrinsic Value |
Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | In this essay I critically assess Larry S. Temkin’s new book, Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning. While I find that there is much to praise about this work, I focus on two points of critique. Generally, Temkin’s aims in this book are to expose a radical tension in our beliefs about value, and to show that one potentially palatable (if not ultimately acceptable) option is to reject the transitivity of the predicate “better than”. However, I argue that in both his motivation for claiming that such a tension exists, and one of his arguments that transitivity is a palatable option, his discussion is missing a crucial step: a first-order discussion of the relationship between intrinsic values; both personal welfare goods and impersonal goods (such as equality, overall utility, etc.). |
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ISSN: | 1745-5243 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of moral philosophy
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/17455243-01203001 |