Research
My research is on comparing things that are very different from one another, like apples and oranges. Here, we often find ourselves at a loss. Rather than being able to make a decisive comparison, we instead feel hesitant to claim that one item is better than, worse than, or exactly equal to the other. Moreover, this intuitive resistance doesn't seem to be due to any ignorance about the things we're comparing. In this way, the items themselves seem to be incomparable to each other.
I’m particularly interested in two different questions. The first is about what exactly is going on in cases of seeming incomparability. That is, are the items actually incomparable, or, is something else going on? The second question is about what it is rational to do when faced with a choice between seemingly incomparable options. That is, are we rationally justified in choosing either option like we would be if the items were equally good, or, is this situation different?
The importance of these questions becomes clear once we realize how ubiquitous seeming incomparability is and how often we have to choose between such options. For example, choosing between different possible careers, public policies, and even significant others often involves choosing between seemingly incomparable options. So its not just about apples and oranges.
Publication
“Seeming Incomparability and Rational Choice”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics (forthcoming)
We sometimes have to choose between options that are seemingly incomparable insofar as they seem to be neither better than, worse than, nor equal to each other. This often happens when the available options are quite different from one another. For instance, consider a choice between prioritizing either criminal justice reform or healthcare reform as a public policy goal. Even after the relevant details of the goals and possible reforms are filled in, it is plausible that neither goal is better than, worse than, nor equal to the other. Such seemingly incomparable options present a problem for rational choice since it is unclear how an agent might rationally choose between them. What we need are some principles to help govern rational choice when faced with seemingly incomparable options. I here present three such principles. While each principle is individually compelling, I show that they are jointly incompatible. I then argue that the correct response to this inconsistent triad is to reject the principle that rationally censures performing a sequence of choices one knows will result in a suboptimal outcome. The upshot is that when seeming incomparability is involved, an agent can money pump themselves without being less rational for it.
Papers in Progress
“Incomparability, Consequentialism, and Risk”
It is plausible that some things are morally incomparable. That is, they may be neither better than, worse than, nor equal to each other in moral value. Such incomparability can make determining the moral permissibility of different actions more complicated. However, it seems clear that even when moral incomparability is involved, it is always morally impermissible to impose an uncompensated risk of harm. That is, it is always impermissible to choose an option that may result in a morally worse outcome but has no possibility of resulting in a morally better outcome. In this paper, I will argue that no act consequentialist theory can actually accept moral incomparability while also condemning all uncompensated risks of harm. So the act consequentialist will have to either deny morally incomparability or morally condone at least some uncompensated risks of harm.
“Combining Comparable and Incomparable Values”
It is plausible that some values admit of incomparability. That is, some values may allow for certain items to be neither better than, worse than, nor equal to each other. The possibility of such values raises a host of questions for both axiology and rational choice. One question is how values that admit of incomparability can be combined with values that do not admit of incomparability. Such value combinations might occur when a supervalue is composed of two constituent values, one comparable and one incomparable. When combining such values, it is intuitively tempting to hold that those items that are incomparable with respect to one of the values, but worse with respect to the other value should be both dispreferred and irrational to choose with respect to the combined supervalue. I argue though that this is mistaken since it erroneously treats incomparability as though it were equality.
“Axioms for Mildly Incomplete Preferences”
I examine how seeming incomparability can crop up in the form of mildly incomplete preferences. An agent has mildly incomplete preferences when there are some items between which they have neither preference nor indifference, but where they do have preferences between each of those items and some common third item. While such preferences fail to satisfy the standard set of axioms for rational preferences, in particular the axioms of Completeness and Continuity, I argue that this should not be worrying because they can satisfy alternative axioms that are similar in spirit. Indeed, I argue that these alternative axioms along with the expected utility axioms of Transitivity, Better Chances, and Better Prizes, form a new set of core axioms that mildly incomplete preferences both can and should satisfy. In this way, I identify the start of a new standard by which to judge the rationality of mildly incomplete preferences. Moreover, I also identify two ways of further developing this standard by incorporating two additional principles that are both intuitively compelling and which we would seem to want to add to our new set of axioms for governing mildly incomplete preferences. The problem is that these principles are jointly incompatible, so we cannot accept them both. It turns out then that we have to either accept that it is rational to have a preference between two lotteries without having any preference between the outcomes of those lotteries, or, accept that we need not be indifferent between two lotteries that have the exact same probabilities of the exact same outcomes.