?To give an adequate account of comparability, do we need to
recognize a relation Ruth Chang calls ?on a par with'?'
In the introduction to her collection of essays, compiled from the works of leading philosophers, economists and other theorists, Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, Ruth Chang commences her treatise by observing that ?[t]here is a growing interest among moral, political and legal philosophers in what is called "the incommensurability of values".' In line with the title to her book, she then continues to specify that the issue which is in fact of high philosophical as well as economical interest is the notion that some values, or value bearers, might be incomparable to one another. As Chang does, I will set aside in my discussion the idea of incommensurability. Although it is a concept which is widely hailed for its ability to implicate utilitarianists, consequentialists and proponents of cost-benefit valuations in serious trouble, its strength lies in stipulating the inability to compare value bearers against one singular scale of measurement. This requirement is lacking from the notion of incomparability which makes it a lot more dangerous to practical reason. The interest in this topic is hence well founded. If proponents of this theory, henceforth called Incomparabilists, are to succeed in showing that in some cases values stand in fact in such a relation to one another as that one is to conclude that they are incomparable, practical reason would be incapable to show any choice made between such incomparable values. To be able to reject the existence of incomparability and explain such cases by other means would go a long way to extending the conceptual space that practical reason finds application to.
In t ...