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A Dominance Argument Against Incompleteness

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  • Christian Tarsney
  • Harvey Lederman
  • Dean Spears

Abstract

This article presents a new argument against many forms of moral and prudential value incompleteness. The argument relies on two central principles: (i) a weak "negative dominance" principle, to the effect that Lottery 1 is better than Lottery 2 only if some possible outcome of Lottery 1 is better than some possible outcome of Lottery 2, and (ii) a weak form of ex ante Pareto, to the effect that, if Lottery 1 gives an unambiguously better (stochastically dominant) prospect to some individuals than Lottery 2, and equally good prospects to everyone else, then Lottery 1 is better than Lottery 2. Given modest auxiliary assumptions, these two principles rule out incompleteness in the prudential ranking of individual lives, and many forms of incompleteness in the moral rankings of outcomes and lotteries.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Tarsney & Harvey Lederman & Dean Spears, 2024. "A Dominance Argument Against Incompleteness," Papers 2403.17641, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2403.17641
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