TY - JOUR
T1 - A Paradox for the Intrinsic Value of Freedom of Choice
AU - Gustafsson, Carl Johan Eric
N1 - © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.
PY - 2019/5/23
Y1 - 2019/5/23
N2 - A standard liberal claim is that freedom of choice is not only instrumentally valuable but also intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable for its own sake. I argue that each one of five conditions should hold if freedom of choice is intrinsically valuable: First, if rational people may differ as to which option is the most preferred in an option set, the offered freedom of choice has some intrinsic value. Second, if an option set is expanded with an option that must be less preferred than the already available options by any rational person, the intrinsic value of the offered freedom of choice does not increase. Third, if an option set is expanded, the intrinsic value of the offered freedom of choice does not decrease. Fourth, if an option set has only one option, it does not offer any intrinsically good freedom of choice. And, fifth, the relation ‘at least as good freedom of choice as’ is transitive. The trouble is that there exists a counter-example to the conjunction of these conditions. Hence freedom of choice is not intrinsically valuable.
AB - A standard liberal claim is that freedom of choice is not only instrumentally valuable but also intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable for its own sake. I argue that each one of five conditions should hold if freedom of choice is intrinsically valuable: First, if rational people may differ as to which option is the most preferred in an option set, the offered freedom of choice has some intrinsic value. Second, if an option set is expanded with an option that must be less preferred than the already available options by any rational person, the intrinsic value of the offered freedom of choice does not increase. Third, if an option set is expanded, the intrinsic value of the offered freedom of choice does not decrease. Fourth, if an option set has only one option, it does not offer any intrinsically good freedom of choice. And, fifth, the relation ‘at least as good freedom of choice as’ is transitive. The trouble is that there exists a counter-example to the conjunction of these conditions. Hence freedom of choice is not intrinsically valuable.
U2 - 10.1111/nous.12290
DO - 10.1111/nous.12290
M3 - Article
SN - 0029-4624
VL - 54
SP - 891
EP - 913
JO - Noûs
JF - Noûs
IS - 4
ER -
