From an expository perspective, I think it would be better for you to explain more the issues with non-transitivity in moral theories, even though the paper does not. This summary is targeted at people without a ton of philosophical knowledge, whereas the paper is targeted at philosophers who are already familiar with the debates around non-transitivity. Giving context to the paradox requires knowing more about transitivity as a philosophical criterion.
Thanks for reading! I totally agree with you that there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to non-transitive moral theories. I did consider going into it in more depth. I agree with you that there’s a good reason to do so: it might not be clear, especially to non-philosophers, how secure principles like transitivity really are. But there are also two good reasons on the other side for not going into it further, and I thought on balance they were a bit stronger.
The first one is that I was summarising the paper, so I didn’t want to spend too much time giving my own views (and it would have to be my own views, given that the original paper doesn’t really discuss it). The second reason, which is probably more important, is that I was really trying hard to keep the word count down, and I felt that if I were to say more about non-transitivity than I already did, it would probably take a lot of space/words to do so.
(Suppose I did something very quick—for example, suppose I just gave Broome’s standard line that we should accept transitivity because it’s a consequence of the logic of comparatives. Setting aside whether that’s actually a good argument, if I just said that without explaining it further I think there are very few people it would help: people who aren’t familiar with that argument won’t find out what it means from my saying that, while people who do know what it means already know what it means! And if I wanted to explain the argument in detail, I think it would take a couple of paragraphs at least.)
From an expository perspective, I think it would be better for you to explain more the issues with non-transitivity in moral theories, even though the paper does not. This summary is targeted at people without a ton of philosophical knowledge, whereas the paper is targeted at philosophers who are already familiar with the debates around non-transitivity. Giving context to the paradox requires knowing more about transitivity as a philosophical criterion.
But otherwise, good summary!
Thanks for reading! I totally agree with you that there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to non-transitive moral theories. I did consider going into it in more depth. I agree with you that there’s a good reason to do so: it might not be clear, especially to non-philosophers, how secure principles like transitivity really are. But there are also two good reasons on the other side for not going into it further, and I thought on balance they were a bit stronger.
The first one is that I was summarising the paper, so I didn’t want to spend too much time giving my own views (and it would have to be my own views, given that the original paper doesn’t really discuss it). The second reason, which is probably more important, is that I was really trying hard to keep the word count down, and I felt that if I were to say more about non-transitivity than I already did, it would probably take a lot of space/words to do so.
(Suppose I did something very quick—for example, suppose I just gave Broome’s standard line that we should accept transitivity because it’s a consequence of the logic of comparatives. Setting aside whether that’s actually a good argument, if I just said that without explaining it further I think there are very few people it would help: people who aren’t familiar with that argument won’t find out what it means from my saying that, while people who do know what it means already know what it means! And if I wanted to explain the argument in detail, I think it would take a couple of paragraphs at least.)