The good, the bad, and the transitivity of better than

Abstract

Spectrum arguments against the transitivity of the “better than” relation typically rely on sequences of experiences varying along dimensions of intensity and duration. While these arguments traditionally utilize purely positive or purely negative outcomes, variations involving combinations of good and bad experiences reveal implications more radical than the mere violation of transitivity. Such combined spectra demonstrate that the reasoning used to reject transitivity entails that an outcome characterized as good can be worse than one that is not good, thereby violating the goodness and badness principles. These principles—which hold that if an outcome is good, any outcome better than it must also be good—are essential for maintaining a coherent link between betterness and practical reasoning. Efforts to resolve this tension by denying the existence of intrinsic value or by adopting reference-dependent models of evaluation fail to preserve intuitive normative judgments. Consequently, the apparent betterness cycles presented in spectrum arguments must be rejected to avoid an impossible choice between the rejection of transitivity and the rejection of the concepts of good and bad altogether. The persuasive force of these arguments is best understood as a manifestation of the sorites paradox, wherein marginal trade-offs between competing dimensions of value accumulate to produce an untenable conclusion. Maintaining the transitivity of “better than” is necessary to avoid the absurd result that the bad could be preferable to the good. – AI-generated abstract.