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Show Chapter III. The Concept of a Genuine Preference 134 (I2) ~Pw(x.~y).~Pw(y.~x) Given only these two alternatives, if you fail to prefer A to B and fail to prefer B to A, then you at least fail to prefer A and fail to prefer B. So from (I2) we can infer (1) ~Pw(x).~Pw(y). But if A and B are equally preferable, then you prefer A and you also prefer B: (2) Pw(x).Pw(y). But then failing to prefer either A or B cannot, on pain of contradiction, arise out of A and B being equally preferable. The Stoic conception of indifference precludes this. Kaplan might respond by distinguishing, as Mill failed to do, between A and B as equally preferable, and A and B as equal in preferability. To say of something that it is preferable is to make a positive value judgment about it - in much the same way we do when we judge something to be desirable. So to say of two things that they are equally preferable is to make the same positive value judgment about both of them. It is to express a favorable intentional attitude toward them. Describe this as "preferableness." By contrast, to say of two or more things that they are equal in preferability is to make a value-neutral modal judgment about their capacity or potential to be preferred, or preferable. It is to make an extensional metaphysical claim about their properties. A and B can be equal in preferability consistently with neither being preferred to the other; this is just to say that their metaphysical capacity or potential to be the object of this favorable intentional attitude is zero. Thus preferableness is distinct from preferability. However, when using the concept of preference in a theory of decision, we cannot mean to be using the metaphysical concept of preferability, on pain of irrelevance. That is, when asked which, between A and B, we strictly prefer, we cannot mean to evaluate them on the basis of which has a greater capacity or potential to be preferred. Who cares? We need to decide which, between A and B, we actually prefer. Similarly, when we state our indifference between A and B, we cannot mean to evaluate both as equal in capacity or potential for being preferred, or neither as superior to the other in this capacity, because this extensional metaphysical assessment has nothing to do with the choice before us. Nor can we use the intentional concept of preferableness to dissect strict preference on the one hand, while using the metaphysical concept of preferability to dissect indifference on the other, on pain of inconsistency. Therefore, although it is true that, as stated above, A and B can be equal in © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
