Heaps and Chains: Is the Chaining Argument for Parity a Sorites?

Ethics 124 (3):557-571 (2014)
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Abstract

I argue that the Ruth Chang’s Chaining Argument for her parity view of value incomparability trades illicitly on the vagueness of the predicate ‘is comparable with’. Chang is alert to this danger and argues that the predicate is not vague, but this defense does not succeed. The Chaining Argument also faces a dilemma. The predicate is either vague or precise. If it is vague, then the argument is most plausibly a sorites. If it is precise, then the argument is either question begging or dialectically ineffective. I argue that no chaining-type argument can succeed

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Luke Elson
University of Reading

Citations of this work

Parity and the Resolution of Value Conflicts in Design.Atay Kozlovski - 2022 - Science and Engineering Ethics 28 (2):1-18.
Parity versus Ignorance.Moritz Schulz - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (4):1183-1204.
The Sorites Paradox in Practical Philosophy.Hrafn Asgeirsson - 2019 - In Sergi Oms & Elia Zardini, The Sorites Paradox. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 229–245.

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References found in this work

The possibility of parity.Ruth Chang - 2002 - Ethics 112 (4):659-688.
On the coherence of vague predicates.Crispin Wright - 1975 - Synthese 30 (3-4):325--65.

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