Someone argues: money is valuable because it buys comfort; comfort is valuable because it leads to happiness; happiness is valuable because it extends healthy life. A critic asks: 'But why is a long life valuable?' What philosophical question does this exchange reveal?
AWhether longevity is objectively measurable
BThe regress of instrumental value — tracing back the chain of 'valuable because it leads to X' forces the question of what has intrinsic value, i.e., what is valuable in itself and not merely as a means
CThe naturalistic fallacy — the arguer is defining goodness in terms of natural states
DA measurement problem rather than a philosophical one
Every link in a chain of instrumental value defers to something further along. If everything is valuable only as a means to something else, the chain either loops or regresses infinitely — neither of which grounds value in anything. The regress is resolved by positing intrinsic value: something valuable for its own sake, not because of what it leads to. This is why the intrinsic/instrumental distinction is foundational to axiology. The question 'but why is X valuable?' applied repeatedly forces you toward intrinsic value.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
A value pluralist claims that knowledge, friendship, beauty, and justice are each intrinsically valuable in their own right. A critic responds: 'Then you're just saying value is subjective — it depends on what each person happens to value.' What is wrong with this objection?
ANothing — admitting multiple values does collapse into subjectivism
BValue pluralism holds that there are multiple objective values, not subjective preferences; a pluralist insists knowledge really is good, not merely that people prefer it
CThe pluralist should rank the multiple values to avoid the objection
DThe objection is correct because pluralism and relativism are equivalent positions
Value pluralism and moral relativism are not the same view. A relativist says value is relative to individuals or cultures. A pluralist says there are multiple objective values — irreducibly different goods that are all genuinely valuable independently of anyone's preferences. W.D. Ross and Isaiah Berlin were pluralists who believed in objective moral facts; they simply denied that all goods reduce to a single currency. The critic confuses 'there are many values' with 'value is merely personal preference.'
Question 3 True / False
G.E. Moore's argument that 'good' cannot be defined in terms of natural properties (like pleasantness or desiredness) is designed to show that intrinsic value is irreducible to empirical facts about the world.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
Moore's 'open question argument' shows that for any natural property N, the question 'This is N, but is it good?' always remains open — it never becomes trivially true. This irreducibility is what Moore means by saying intrinsic value is a simple, non-natural property. Whether or not Moore's conclusion is accepted, his argument establishes that any naturalistic account of intrinsic value faces a real challenge.
Question 4 True / False
The problem of incommensurability poses difficulties for value pluralists and relativists but does not threaten consequentialism, which can simply assign numerical utilities to most outcomes.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This gets it backwards. Consequentialism is especially threatened by incommensurability because consequentialism requires comparing and aggregating outcomes to identify which action produces the most value. If goods like artistic achievement and scientific discovery cannot be ranked on a single scale — if they are genuinely incommensurable — consequentialism cannot determine which outcome is 'better.' The ability to assign utilities only postpones the problem; it doesn't solve it, because assigning them requires commensurability in the first place.
Question 5 Short Answer
Explain why the problem of incommensurability poses a serious challenge to consequentialism.
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Consequentialism holds that the right action is the one that produces the most value (or the best outcome). This requires the ability to compare outcomes — to say that outcome A is better than, worse than, or equal to outcome B. If some values are incommensurable — meaning they cannot be ranked on a single scale, neither being greater, lesser, nor equal in value — then comparing outcomes that differ in incommensurable goods becomes impossible. Consequentialism cannot identify a 'best' outcome when the relevant goods resist the comparison that the theory requires. The challenge is not merely practical difficulty in measurement but a principled impossibility of the ranking the theory needs.
This is one of the deepest internal tensions in normative ethics. Monist consequentialists (hedonists, preference utilitarians) try to solve it by reducing all values to one currency. Pluralist consequentialists accept multiple values but then face the aggregation problem. Anti-aggregative views (like some versions of deontology) argue that the right response is to abandon the maximizing framework altogether.