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A Holist Balance Scale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2022

CHRIS TUCKER
CHRIS TUCKER*
Affiliation:
WILLIAM & MARY cstucker@wm.edu
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Abstract

Scale-based models of weighing reasons face challenges concerning the context sensitivity of weight, the aggregation of weight, and the methodology for determining what the weights of reasons are. I resolve these challenges.

Keywords

weighing reasonsholismadditive aggregationpartialitydiminishing marginal utility
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2023 , pp. 533 - 553
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

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Footnotes

I wrote the initial draft of this paper using a generous summer research grant and sabbatical from William & Mary. Daniel Muñoz, Wes Siscoe, and anonymous referees provided very helpful comments on earlier drafts. Conversations with Philip Swenson and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong were also helpful, especially Walter's suggestion that diminishing marginal utility would usefully illustrate some of the issues in the paper. I am immensely grateful for this help from my institution and fellow philosophers.

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