Opaque Sweetening and Transitivity

  • Ryan Doody*
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)
126 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

I argue that any plausible decision theory for agents with incomplete preferences which obeys the Never Worse Principle will violate Transitivity. The Never Worse Principle says that, if one option never does worse than another, you shouldn’t disprefer it. Transitivity says that, if you prefer X to Y and you prefer Y to Z, then you should prefer X to Z. Violating Transitivity allows one to be money pumped. Although agents with incomplete preferences are already, in virtue of having incomplete preferences, vulnerable to being money pumped, I argue that the money pump argument for Transitivity is more serious than the one for Completeness.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)559-571
Number of pages13
JournalAustralasian Journal of Philosophy
Volume97
Issue number3
Early online date10-Feb-2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019
Externally publishedYes

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