Joseph Raz; VII*—Value Incommensurability: Some Preliminaries, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 86, Issue 1, 1 June 1986, Pages 117–134, https://.

Incommensurability is the impossibility to determine how two options relate to each other in terms of conventional comparative relations. This book features new research on incommensurability from philosophers who have shaped the field into what it is today, including John Broome, Ruth Chang and Wlodek Rabinowicz. The book covers four aspects relating to incommensurability. In the first part, the contributors synthesize research on the competing views of how to best explain incommensurability. Part II illustrates how (...) class='Hi'>incommensurability can help us deal with seemingly insurmountable problems in ethical theory and population ethics. The contributors address the Repugnant Conclusion, the Mere Addition Paradox and so-called Spectrum Arguments. The chapters in Part III outline and summarize problems caused by incommensurability for decision theory. Finally, Part IV tackles topics related to risk, uncertainty and incommensurability. Value Incommensurability: Ethics, Risk, and Decision-Making will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethical theory, decision theory, action theory, and philosophy of economics. (shrink)

The foundation of natural law ethics is a set of basic human goods, such as life and health, knowledge, work and play, appreciation of beauty, friendship, and religion. A disputed question among natural law theorists is whether the basic goods are “incommensurable.” But there is widespread ambiguity in the natural law literature about what incommensurability means, which makes it unclear how this disagreement should be understood and resolved. First, I clear up this ambiguity by distinguishing between incommensurability and (...) incomparability. I show that proponents of New Natural Law Theory hold that basic goods are both incommensurable and incomparable, whereas proponents of Classical Natural Law Theory hold that basic goods are incommensurable but comparable. Second, I critique the leading New Natural Law arguments for the incomparability of basic goods. Throughout the article, I explain why value incommensurability is an essential feature of natural law ethics but value incomparability is not. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the challenge to rational choice posed by the problem of value incommensurability, and argue that incommensurabilists misrepresentour position as practical reasoners. In essence, I claim that reason has considerably more to work with than their arguments suggest, and that as a result it is possible for us to compare even the deepest values. To say that it is possible for us to compare values is not to say that it is always easy, however, (...) or that thequestion of how best to characterize the common measure that allows for these comparisons isn’t open to vigorous dispute. But I argue that it is one thing to saythat the measure is obscure or that it guides us only imprecisely—and quite another to claim that it is conceptually impossible to weigh the deep values in lightof a common standard. (shrink)

Arguments for value incommensurability ultimately depend on a certain diagnosis of human motivation. Incommensurablists hold that each person's basic ends are not only irreducible but also incompatible with one another. It isn't merely that some goals can't, in fact, be jointly realized; values actually compete for influence. This account makes a mistake about the nature of human motivation. Each value underwrites a ceteris paribus evaluation. Such assessments are mutually compatible because the observation that there is something to (...) be said for an outcome from a particular perspective allows for any ultimate evaluation of that outcome; Values can be irreducible without thereby being incommensurable. (shrink)

Equality, diversity and radical politics -- Value incommensurability -- Empathic imagination and its limits -- Critiquing compassion-based social relations -- Egalitarianism, disability and monistic ideals -- Equality, identity and disability -- Paradox and the limits of reason.

Several critics have denied value incommensurability – or the claim, roughly, that there is no common measure in terms of which values can be weighed – on the basis of what we might call the argument from easy cases. Although the argument from easy cases is quite popular, what is much less often discussed is what exactly the argument entails – in other words, what sort of further commitments the argument generates. Suppose we grant that easy cases point (...) to the existence of a common measure. How then should we think about this common measure? What is its scope? How widely does it range? I attempt to clarify these questions and in the process evaluate the force of the argument from easy cases. (shrink)

This introductory article describes the phenomena of incommensurability and incomparability, how they are related, and why they are important. Since incomparability is the more significant phenomenon, the paper takes that as its focus. It gives a detailed account of what incomparability is, investigates the relation between the incomparability of values and the incomparability of alternatives for choice, distinguishes incomparability from the related phenomena of parity, indeterminacy, and noncomparability, and, finally, defends a view about practical justification that vindicates the importance (...) of incomparability — assuming it exists — for practical reason. (shrink)

Two options are incommensurate in value if neither is better than the other, and if a small improvement or worsening of one does not necessarily make it determinately better or worse than the other. If a person faces a sequence of choices between incommensurate options, she may end up with a worse options than she could have had, even though none of her choices are irrational. Yet it seems that rationality should save her from this bad outcome. This is (...) the practical problem posed by incommensurability of values, and it may be solved by a new account of practical reasoning. (shrink)

According to the accepted translation-failure interpretation, the problem of incommensurability involves the nature of the meaning-referential relation between scientific languages. The incommensurability thesis is that some competing scientific languages are mutually untranslatable due to the radical variance of meaning or/and reference of the terms they employ. I argue that this interpretation faces many difficulties and cannot give us a tenable, coherent, and integrated notion of incommensurability. It has to be rejected. ;On the basis of two case studies, (...) I find that the confrontations between many classical incommensurable languages are not confrontations between two untranslatable languages with different distribution of truth values, but rather the confrontations between incompatible fundamental presuppositions at the ontological level. We can always identify a truth-value gap between two incommensurable languages. Such a truth-value gap indicates a communication breakdown between the two language communities on the one hand, and is caused by the incompatible fundamental presuppositions underlying them on the other. ;I thereby identify the truth-value functional relationship between sentences, instead of the meaning-referential relationship between terms, as the dominant semantic relation between two incommensurable languages. According to my presuppositional interpretation of incommensurability, the real secret of incommensurability lies in the ontological setup of two competing presuppositional languages. When two presuppositional languages with incompatible factual commitments encounter with each other, the confrontation leads to a truth-value gap, and consequently a communication breakdown between them. Formally put, two scientific languages are incommensurable when core sentences of one language, which have truth values when considered within its own context, lack truth values when considered within the context of the other due to an ontological gap between them. ;The presuppositional interpretation makes many significant contributions to the discussion of the issue of incommensurability and the related metaphysical and epistemological issues: It confirms the existence of the phenomenon of incommensurability and makes it metaphysically and epistemologically significant. It establishes the tenability and integrity of the notion of incommensurability. It avoids many alleged unattractive epistemological and metaphysical consequences of the translation-failure interpretation. (shrink)

Some theorists believe that there is a plurality of values, and that in many circumstances these values are incommensurable, or at least incomparable. Others believe that all values are reducible to a single super-value, or that even if there is a plurality of irreducible values these values are commensurable. But I will argue that both sides have got it wrong. Values are neither commensurable nor incommensurable, at least not in the way most people think. We are free to believe (...) in incommensurability or not, depending on what particular conception of morality we want to embrace. Incommensurability is accordingly not a theory about value. It is a presupposition that provides a necessary background condition for a certain kind of value to exist. It is therefore not the kind of view that can be morally true or false. As a presupposition, it can only be accepted or rejected on grounds that do not presuppose that morality already exists. Incommensurability is, like the rejection of hard determinism, one of the presuppositions on which morality as we know it happens to be based. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIsaiah Berlin’s idea of value pluralism has been extensively discussed in recent decades. However, there is still much controversy about the actual meaning and implication of the terms “incompatibility” and “incommensurability” when applied to values. This article analyses the Berlinian concept of value pluralism from a theoretical point of view and argues that, following Berlin’s work, incompatibility should be defined as the impossibility of two ends being combined at a maximum level―though it is possible to find compromises (...) between them when not pursued to their maximum―whereas incommensurability refers to the existence of more than one valid, rational solution to a conflict of ends. After commenting on the arguments advanced by other scholars, the presence of a certain idea of rationality in Berlin’s notion of value pluralism is advanced. Finally, it is demonstrated that incompatibility and incommensurability provide Berlin’s pluralism with its characteristic tragic feature which differentiates it from monism. (shrink)

Kuhn's alleged taxonomic interpretation of incommensurability is grounded on an ill defined notion of untranslatability and is hence radically incomplete. To supplement it, I reconstruct Kuhn's taxonomic interpretation on the basis of a logical-semantic theory of taxonomy, a semantic theory of truth-value, and a truth-value conditional theory of cross-language communication. According to the reconstruction, two scientific languages are incommensurable when core sentences of one language, which have truth values when considered within its own context, lack truth values (...) when considered within the context of the other due to the unmatchable taxonomic structures underlying them. So constructed, Kuhn's mature interpretation of incommensurability does not depend upon the notion of truth-preserving translatability, but rather depends on the notion of truth-value-status-preserving cross-language communication. The reconstruction makes Kuhn's notion of incommensurability a well grounded, tenable and integrated notion.Author Keywords: Incommensurability; Thomas Kuhn; Taxonomic structures; Lexicons; Truth-value; Untranslatability; Cross-language communication. (shrink)

Many recent attacks on consequentialism and several defenses of pluralism have relied on arguments for the incommensurability of value. Such arguments have, generally, turned on empirical appeals to aspects of our everyday experience of value conflict. My intention, largely, is to bypass these arguments and turn instead to a discussion of the conceptual apparatus needed to make the claim that values are incommensurable. After delineating what it would mean for values to be incommensurable, I give an a (...) priori argument that such is impossible. It is widely accepted that value is conceptually tied to desire. I argue that, more specifically, it is proportional to merited desire strength. This connection gives one a metric of all value if there is any such thing. This metric entails that value is a complete ordering over all states of affairs, or, in other words, that value is commensurable. (shrink)

This highly original book sheds new light on aspects of incommensurability of values and its implications for ethics and justice. It provides original and innovative analysis of the characteristics of incommensurability in relation to values, and explores the implications of incommensurability for ethics, justice and public decision-making.

Divergent values are often at the heart of natural resource conflict. Using discord over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, U.S.A. as a case study, I propose that values are perceived as incommensurate because they reflect different realms, with which there exist distinct concepts of what it means to value and distinct, irreducible forms of value expression. I further argue that collaborative, discursive processes are one way to account for plural values in policy and decision making (...) without requiring a common metric, yet they are not without theoretical and practical challenges. (shrink)

This paper presents the contribution of the pragmatic sociology of critical capacities to the understanding of environmental conflicts. In the field of 'environmental valuation', nowadays colonised by economics, the approach of plural modes (or 'regimes') of engagement provides a sociological understanding of the unequal power of conflicting 'languages of valuation'. This frame entails a shift from 'values' to 'modes of valuation', and links modes of valuation to modes of practical engagement and coordination with the surrounding environment. Different social sources of (...) incommensurability are thus detected and reframed as critical tension within and among modes of human coordination with the environment. (shrink)

In this chapter I will concentrate on compromise in ethical conflict and disagreement. I will discuss compromises related to disagreement with respect to public decisions between options that represent conflicting incommensurable human values. The central question will be whether in those cases a principled compromise is possible. A ‘principled compromise’ can be defined as a rational way to achieve a trade-off or balance between conflicting values, for instance, by rational assignment of relative weights. I will argue that in some cases (...) incommensurability will prevent a principled compromise in the defined sense. I will show why phrases used by some philosophers, such as ‘making a rational trade-off’, ‘striking the right balance’, ‘finding the Aristotelian Mean’ or ‘splitting the difference’, are based on misunderstandings about the characteristics of incommensurable values that are usually at stake in the pursuit of a compromise. I will show that incommensurable values lack an equivalence relation and how this prevents a determinate trade-off or balance between them. This is especially important with respect to the pursuit of compromises in ethical conflicts, including conflicts of justice, where we need a rational and ethical justification for the final decision. I will argue that the model of deliberative democracy presents a promising procedure for making the final decision legitimate but that, in the relevant cases, it cannot avoid an ethical deficit. (shrink)

There are several different forms of comparability involving prudential values. Comparisons of values in the abstract, of realizations of some value, and of options which realize values, are distinct, and related, though not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, if rough equality is thought of as an evaluative relation in terms of which comparisons can be made, it does not imply incomparability. If it involves epistemic vagueness, this does not imply incomparability, since our not knowing which relation holds does not imply that (...) no relation holds. Finally, if it is true to some degree that some relation holds, there may be some fuzzy ordering. Given that we may not be able coherently to talk about degrees of truth, I propose an open-ended comparability condition, which takes account of rough equality, epistemic vagueness and fuzziness. (shrink)

Local opposition to infrastructure projects implementing renewable energy (RE) such as wind farms is often strong even if state-wide support for RE is strikingly high. The slogan “Not In My BackYard” (NIMBY) has become synonymous for this kind of protest. This paper revisits the question of what is wrong with NIMBYs about RE projects and how to best address them. I will argue that local opponents to wind farm (and other RE) developments do not necessarily fail to contribute their fair (...) share to producing a desirable public good (clean energy). In fact, with landscape concerns being at the heart of much protest, the question of fair burden distribution becomes sidelined: landscape impacts cannot be distributed nor compensated for. Protests may be attempts to express a true conflict of (incommensurable) values. Understanding them as such will help us better address NIMBY concerns and overcome such opposition through ensuring procedural justice. (shrink)

This paper casts doubts on John Broome's view that vagueness in value comparisons crowds out incommensurability in value. It shows how vagueness can be imposed on a formal model of value relations that has room for different types of incommensurability. The model implements some basic insights of the ‘fitting attitudes’ analysis of value.

Dworkin and Raz reject moral skepticism and offer holistic and non-derivative defenses of the objectivity of value. Furthermore, they acknowledge a role for social practices in the explanation of t...

Values are incommensurable when they cannot be measured on a single cardinal scale. Many philosophers suggest that incommensurability can help us solve the problems of population ethics. I agree. But some philosophers claim that populations bear incommensurable values merely because they contain different numbers of people, perhaps within some range. I argue that mere differences in how many people exist, even within some range, do not suffice for incommensurability. I argue that the intuitive neutrality of creating happy people (...) is better captured by a version of average utilitarianism. But this view is problematic. So I suggest a version of total utilitarianism that avoids the repugnant conclusion by appealing to incommensurable dimensions of wellbeing. (shrink)

The spectrum argument purports to show that the better-than relation is not transitive, and consequently that orthodox value theory is built on dubious foundations. The argument works by constructing a sequence of increasingly less painful but more drawn-out experiences, such that each experience in the spectrum is worse than the previous one, yet the final experience is better than the experience with which the spectrum began. Hence the betterness relation admits cycles, threatening either transitivity or asymmetry of the relation. (...) This paper examines recent attempts to block the spectrum argument, using the idea that it is a mistake to affirm that every experience in the spectrum is worse than its predecessor: an alternative hypothesis is that adjacent experiences may be incommensurable in value, or that due to vagueness in the underlying concepts, it is indeterminate which is better. While these attempts formally succeed as responses to the spectrum argument, they have additional, as yet unacknowledged costs that are significant. In order to effectively block the argument in its most typical form, in which the first element is radically inferior to the last, it is necessary to suppose that the incommensurability is particularly acute: what might be called radical incommensurability. We explain these costs, and draw some general lessons about the plausibility of the available options for those who wish to save orthodox axiology from the spectrum argument. (shrink)

Can quite different values be rationally weighed against one another? Can the value of one thing always be ranked as greater than, equal to, or less than the value of something else? If the answer to these questions is no, then in what areas do we find commensurability and comparability unavailable? And what are the implications for moral and legal decision making? This book struggles with these questions, and arrives at distinctly different answers.".

This book was published in 2003.This volume presents a detailed examination of incommensurability in the value-theoretical sense. Exploring how choosers deal with problems and constraints of choice, the author draws on work in cognitive psychology, in sociology, in jurisprudence, in economics, and in the theory of value to show how choosers learn to make trade-offs when there is potential incommensurability among the options they are considering. The analysis is also informed by recent work in the tradition (...) of Michel Foucault. With so many modern devices and ideals of government dependent on the comparability of options, this book is timely and can inform public debate about de-regulation, user-pays, accountability, and the substitution of market mechanisms for government regulation and supply. (shrink)

Abstract: The paper provides a general account of value relations. It takes its departure in a special type of value relation, parity, which according to Ruth Chang is a form of evaluative comparability that differs from the three standard forms of comparability: betterness, worseness and equal goodness. Recently, Joshua Gert has suggested that the notion of parity can be accounted for if value comparisons are interpreted as normative assessments of preference. While Gert's basic idea is attractive, the (...) way he develops it is flawed: His modeling of values by intervals of permissible preference strengths is inadequate. Instead, I provide an alternative modeling in terms of intersections of rationally permissible preference orderings. This yields a general taxonomy of all binary value relations. The paper concludes with some implications of this approach for rational choice. (shrink)

There is growing support for the view that there can be cases of incommensurability, understood as cases in which two alternatives, X and Y, are such that X is not better than Y, Y is not better than X, and X and Y are not equally good. This paper assumes that alternatives can be incommensurable and explores the prominent idea that, insofar as choice situations that agents face qua rational agents involve options that are not rankable as one better (...) than the other or as equally good, the choice situations are, due to this _structural_ feature, _distinctively_ hard. It might seem like choosing between incommensurable alternatives is obviously distinctively hard because, _unlike in other cases_, in cases of incommensurability, one cannot proceed in a way that does justice to the value of each of the goods at stake by factoring their value into one’s decision. The reasoning in this paper suggests that this position is mistaken, not because there is no real challenge here, but because, insofar as a challenge has been identified, it is one that can make cases involving commensurable alternatives hard too. The paper’s reasoning also suggests that the challenge at issue can sometimes, even if not always, be overcome via effective choice over time. Although many of the illustrations focused on in the paper involve low-stakes intrapersonal cases of decisionmaking, the paper’s reasoning is, as is apparent by the end of the paper, relevant for high-stakes and population-level decision-making as well. (shrink)

This paper revisits one of the key ideas developed in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In particular, it explores the methodological form of incommensurability which may be found in the original edition of Structure. It is argued that such methodological incommensurability leads to a form of epistemic relativism. In later work, Kuhn moved away from the original idea of methodological incommensurability with his idea of a set of epistemic values that provides a basis for rational theory choice, (...) but do not constitute an algorithm for such choice. The paper also explores the sceptical basis for the epistemic relativism of the original view that Kuhn proposes in Structure. It suggests that the main sceptical rationale for such relativism may be avoided by a particularist and naturalist conception of epistemic normativity. When this approach is combined with the appeal to external methodological standards endorsed by the later Kuhn and his critics, the epistemic relativism of Structure may be completely repudiated. (shrink)

Against the received translation-failure interpretation, this book presents a presuppositional interpretation of incommensurability, that is, the thesis of incommensurability as cross-language communication breakdown due to the incompatible metaphysical presuppositions underlying two competing presuppositional languages, such as scientific languages. This semantically sound, epistemologically well-established, and metaphysically profound interpretation not only affirms the tenability of the notion of incommensurability and confirms the reality of the phenomenon of incommensurability, but also makes some significant contributions to the discussion of many (...) related issues, such as the notion of conceptual schemes, the notion of truth-value status and truth-value conditions, and the issue of cross-language understanding and communication. (shrink)

Human agents act for reasons that contribute to their good. However, in our explanation of why agents act for reasons that depend on what they value, we encounter the problem of situations in which goods are neither better than others nor are of equal value. The incommensurability of value can then be seen to lead to an incommensurability of reasons for action. Examining rationalist and classical conceptions of human agency, Raz uses the presence of (...) class='Hi'>incommensurability to understand how this affects the relation between reasons and the will, and its effects on our practical reasoning and deliberation. A proper understanding of human agency will take for granted that the goodness of options are incommensurate and that explanations concerning what we want cannot solely be accomplished in terms of reasons. (shrink)

Corporate and commercial values are inducing some healthcare organizations to prescribe a customer service model that reframes the provision of nursing care. In this paper it is argued that such a model is incommensurable with nursing conceived as a moral practice and ultimately places nurses at risk. Based upon understanding from ongoing research on compassion fatigue, it is proposed that compassion fatigue as currently experienced by nurses may not arise predominantly from too great a demand for compassion, but rather from (...) barriers to enacting compassionate care. These barriers are often systemic. The paradigm shift in which healthcare environments are viewed as marketplaces rather than moral communities has the potential to radically affect the evolution of nursing as a discipline. (shrink)

In this article I argue against the view, recently espoused by several authors, that the `incommensurability of values' and `political pespectivism' offer us decisive reasons as to why we should break the link between representation and (the quest for) unity. I hold that it is of paramount importance to retain this essential link. Since Sir Isaiah Berlin has played a major (and in my view unfortunate) role in linking `politics as the quest for unity and the common good' with (...) the `totalitarian temptation', I proceed to show how it is possible to have an understanding of politics as precisely such a quest, but without succumbing to the temptation to totalitarianism that Berlin alerts us to. I then take issue with Chantal Mouffe's view that the tendency to antagonism, rather than the quest for unity and rational consensus, is `the essence of the political'. (shrink)

The argument and purpose of this comment will be to cross-pollinate value incommensurability theory and Levinasian deconstruction so as to begin to develop a social and legal theory that (1) is motivated by an ethical commitment to the irreducibility of human subjects, institutions, and goods and (2) negotiates between those incommensurable subjects and values through democratic procedural mechanisms. This hybridization of the two schools of thought will provide ethical grounding for legal incommensurability theorists, and political grounding for (...) Levinasian critical theory. (shrink)

This paper defends a normative basis for entrepreneurial ventures, and draws the conclusion that any enterprise, insofar as it is reasonable, has in final analysis to be a (free) gift to promote good. Building on Herbert Simon's idea of "satisficing" and developing it in line with axiological insights of the new classical natural law theory, this paper makes the argument that a choice to proceed reasonably in any entrepreneurial venture will be guided by rationality that is bounded. Bounded rationality entails (...) that the various end-values or goals of the venture will be incommensurable, and this implies that (1) the enterprise need not be locked in on promoting merely one value, such as profits, and (2) a choice to aim at one or more goals will be a personal (free) gift, which is ethically valuable. This paper has appeared in Spanish translation as El don personal en las empresas sanas: racionalidad limitada, valores incommensurables y agencia economica in Revista Empresa y Humanismo, Vol. XI no. 1 (2008), pp. 67-88, published by the Institute for Business and Humanism, University of Navarra, Spain. Permission granted to reproduce/publish the original English version here and elsewhere. (shrink)

In this article I argue against the view, recently espoused by several authors, that the `incommensurability of values' and `political pespectivism' offer us decisive reasons as to why we should break the link between representation and (the quest for) unity. I hold that it is of paramount importance to retain this essential link. Since Sir Isaiah Berlin has played a major (and in my view unfortunate) role in linking `politics as the quest for unity and the common good' with (...) the `totalitarian temptation', I proceed to show how it is possible to have an understanding of politics as precisely such a quest, but without succumbing to the temptation to totalitarianism that Berlin alerts us to. I then take issue with Chantal Mouffe's view that the tendency to antagonism, rather than the quest for unity and rational consensus, is `the essence of the political'. (shrink)

Scientific authority and physician authority are both challenged by Thomas Kuhn's concept of incommensurability. If competing “paradigms” or “world views” cannot rationally be compared, we have no means to judge the truth of any particular view. However, the notion of local or partial incommensurability might provide a framework for understanding the implications of contemporary philosophy of science for medicine. We distinguish four steps in the process of translating medical science into clinical decisions: the doing of the science, the (...) appropriation of the scientific findings by the clinician, the transfer of the findings from the clinician to the patient, and the choice of a treatment regimen. Incommensurability can play a role in each stage. There is at least some theory- and value-ladenness in science that is dependent on the world view of those who construct the scientific theories. Clinicians who must use the results of scientific research will inevitably interpret the research from the standpoint of their own world view. There may be further incommensurability when these data are communicated to the patient. Finally, clinician and patient values must come into play in any decision about choice of treatment. No stage of medical research or practice is value-free. This position does not imply relativism; some scientific accounts are better than others. However, the challenge of the incommensurabilists shows that further analysis is needed to establish how particular accounts are better or worse. (shrink)

In engineering design research different models of functional decomposition are advanced side-by-side. In this paper I explain and validate this co-existence of models in terms of the Kuhnian thesis of methodological incommensurability. I advance this analysis in terms of the thesis’ construal of (non-algorithmic) theory choice in terms of values, expanding this notion to the engineering domain. I further argue that the (by some) implicated threat of the thesis to rational theory choice has no force in the functional decomposition (...) case: co-existence of different models of functional decomposition is rational from an instrumental point of view. My explanation covers cases in which different models are advanced as means for the same objective. Such cases cannot be explicated with the explanatory construct of variety in objectives, as advanced in other analyses of co-existing conceptualizations in engineering. (shrink)

Recently, some of the leading proponents of the view that there is widespread incommensurability among goods have suggested that the incommensurability of some goods is a constitutive feature of the goods themselves. So, for example, a friendship and a million dollars are incommensurable because it is part of what it is to be a friendship that it be incommensurable with money. According to these ‘constitutive incommensurabilists’ incommensurability follows from the very nature of certain goods. In this paper, (...) I examine this idea and argue that constitutive incommensurabilists have mistaken for constitutive incommensurability a particular emphatic kind of comparability. This examination involves an account of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ goods and an explanation of how goods of different ‘types’ figure in practical conflict. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article argues that, although psychoanalysis and history have different conceptions of time and causality, there can be a productive relationship between them. Psychoanalysis can force historians to question their certainty about facts, narrative, and cause; it introduces disturbing notions about unconscious motivation and the effects of fantasy on the making of history. This was not the case with the movement for psychohistory that began in the 1970s. Then the influence of American ego‐psychology on history‐writing promoted the idea of compatibility (...) between the two disciplines in ways that undercut the critical possibilities of their interaction. The work of the French historian Michel de Certeau provides theoretical insight into the uses of incommensurability, while that of Lyndal Roper demonstrates both its limits and its value for enriching historical understanding. (shrink)