Akshath Jitendranath (J.S. Mill College, Free University Amsterdam)
Hard Choices: Neither Parity, Nor Incommensurability, Nor Incomparability
Taking what Isaac Levi and Ruth Chang call hard choices as my point of departure, I present a comprehensive and systematic critique of the contemporary philosophical discussion of this phenomena. I argue that: (i) neither are hard choices cases where the alternatives are on a par with each other as Ruth Chang has influentially claimed; (ii) nor are they situations where the alternatives instantiate incommensurable values as, alas, too many philosophers tacitly believe; and further, (iii) despite being widely held and fairly plausible, the belief that hard choices are situations where some pair of alternatives are incomparable or unranked is not a convincing position to hold. Each of these three claims are an immediate consequence of the fairly intuitive idea – which is nevertheless taken up and defended first – that a situation where a best alternative exists does not constitute a hard choice