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Higher and Lower Pleasures – Doubts on Justification

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Abstract

According to the discontinuity view we can have a (lower) pleasure which, no matter how often a certain unit of it is added to itself, cannot become greater in value than a unit of another (higher) pleasure. All recent adherents of this view seem to rely basically on the same sort of reasoning which is referred to here as ‘the preference test’. This article presents three arguments, each of which indicates that the inference from the preference test to the discontinuity view is not conclusive.

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Ryberg, J. Higher and Lower Pleasures – Doubts on Justification. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 5, 415–429 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021309407124

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021309407124

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