8

Jun

Higher Sem in Practical Philosophy: Signe Savén "Against fanaticism: why a continuum argument in favor of fanaticism fails"

8 June 2023 13:15 to 15:00 Seminar

It is time for this semester’s final High seminar in practical philosophy. On Thursday June 8, Signe Savén (LU) will be presenting a paper titled

Against fanaticism: why a continuum argument in favor of fanaticism fails

Abstract

In this talk, I aim to argue against fanaticism (roughly, the idea that gambles consisting of tiny probabilities of enormous values are better than a certain, or almost certain, moderate good) by making a case for why a continuum argument in favor of fanaticism fails. The argument is based on a sequence of lotteries. The first lottery will almost certainly pay off with a moderate payoff. For each lottery down the sequence, there is a very slight decrease in the probability of it paying off, and a large increase in utility. The final lottery has an arbitrarily small probability of paying off, but if it does, the utility will be enormous. Intuitively, each consecutive lottery is better than the one before it. But if the better-than relation is transitive, this seems to imply that the final lottery is better than the first, that is, it seems to imply fanaticism.  

I wish to grant that each consecutive lottery is better than the one before it (to be clear, I want to grant this for all adjacent pairwise comparisons along the continuum), and that the better-than relation is transitive, yet reject that fanaticism follows. I think that the continuum argument is misrepresentative. That each consecutive lottery is better than the one before it is based on pairwise comparisons of lotteries. From such pairwise comparisons, it does not follow that all lotteries can be ranked linearly in terms of betterness. Rather, which lottery is best depends on the lotteries to which it is compared. Some such comparisons allow for linear rankings in terms of betterness, others do not, and the full continuum does not. Thus, I can reject fanaticism by claiming that the better-than relation does not apply linearly over the continuum, yet grant that the better-than relation is transitive.

Time: 13.15-15.00

Venue: LUXB538

 

Welcome!

Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen

About the event:

8 June 2023 13:15 to 15:00

Location:
LUXB538

Contact:
Toni.Ronnow-Rasmussenfil.luse

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