Incommensurability and consistency

• Published in: Philosophical studies 2024-12, Vol.181 (12), p.3235-3251
• Main Author: Bossert, Walter
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Education; Epistemology; Ethics; Metaphysics; Philosophy; Philosophy of Language; Philosophy of Mind
• ISSN: 0031-8116; 1573-0883
• DOI: 10.1007/s11098-023-02058-7

Public-policy choices frequently have to be carried out in the presence of incommensurabilities. These incommensurabilities may manifest themselves in the form of incompleteness—that is, some of the options under consideration are not comparable by a decision maker. As a consequence, it may be impossible to select policies that are at least as good as all competing proposals. When faced with incommensurabilities of this nature, transitivity can be considered too demanding a requirement. An attractive weakening of transitivity consists of a property that Kotaro Suzumura (Economica, 43:381–390, 1976) introduced under the label of consistency. Suzumura consistency postulates that goodness cycles with at least one instance of betterness are to be avoided thus strengthening the well-known acyclicity condition that precludes the existence of betterness cycles. The property is compared to alternative weakenings of transitivity, and it is shown that it has numerous advantages over other contenders. For instance, Suzumura consistency is precisely what is needed to avoid a money pump. The issue of rational choice in the context of public decision-making is discussed in order to provide an illustration of the usefulness of Suzumura consistency.