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(2008) Synthese 165 (1).

The small improvement argument

Nicolas Espinoza

pp. 127-139

It is commonly assumed that moral deliberation requires that the alternatives available in a choice situation are evaluatively comparable. This comparability assumption is threatened by claims of incomparability, which is often established by means of the small improvement argument (SIA). In this paper I argue that SIA does not establish incomparability in a stricter sense. The reason is that it fails to distinguish incomparability from a kind of evaluative indeterminacy which may arise due to the vagueness of the evaluative comparatives ‘better than,’ ‘worse than,’ and ‘equally as good as.’

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-007-9243-0

Full citation:

Espinoza, N. (2008). The small improvement argument. Synthese 165 (1), pp. 127-139.

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