Commentary on Nussbaum

D a n W. B r o c k

Professor Nussbaum's very interesting and wide-ranging paper

develops a plausible Aristotelian account of rational c h o i c e .I find
much in that account to agree with. In this very brief comment I
want only to question the extent of the contrast she draws
between Aristotle and contemporary social choice t h e o r y .I shall
suggest that social choice theorists who defend the
commensurability of value need not, and in fact generally do not,
accept the claim she labels metricity. Metricity is not necessary to
commensurability. But most of the unacceptable implications
which she finds in social choice theory are consequences of
metricity, not of the commensurability of value. This suggests
that the Aristotelian account of practical reason a n d
contemporary social choice theory need not be in as sharp
conflict as Nussbaum suggests, though there is not space here
to take up her charges against social choice theory point by
point.
What is the claim that not all values are commensurable?
Nussbaum takes its core to lie in the denial of metricity, "the claim
that in each situation of choice there is some one value, varying
only in quantity, that is common to all the alternatives, and that
the rational chooser weighs the alternatives using this single
standard." There is no one common property, possessed only in
different degrees, in an intellectually engaging conversation, a
fine rich cheesecake and steadfastly standing by one's friend in
adversity, which is what we value in each of these things or
experiences and which varies only in degree. If we attend to the
objects of our desires, for example a philosophic discussion and
a piece of cheesecake, how could it possibly be that their value
depends on some single shared property present in all the
objects of our desires? What property do the conversation and
the cheesecake share? If we understand the objects of our
desires to be experiences and things, like conversations and
cheesecakes, and look for something "in the conversation" and
"in the cheesecake," our search for a single shared value
property seems to come up empty.
Of course, one traditional move for the commensurability
proponent, and a move that Nussbaum notes Aristotle argues
against, is to hold that it is not conversations and cheesecakes
that have value, but the pleasure they produce. In this view,
pleasure is defended as in some sense the ultimate object of our
desires and of value; it is for the pleasure they produce that we
desire conversations and c h e e s e c a k e s . If pleasure is
understood as some single, unitary state of mind, feeling, or
sensation, then we would have the single property or quality
which could give value to any experience or thing. Experiences
will be of value in so far as they contain this property, things in so
far as they produce it, but so far as intrinsic value is concerned,
both are only instrumental to what is ultimately of value, namely
this feeling or sensation of pleasure. This view is subject to the
various unacceptable implications Nussbaum attributes to the
commensurability of value thesis generally. Against this hedonist
strategy for gaining commensurability, Aristotle argues that
pleasure is not unitary in the way this account assumes, though
just what his own view of the nature of pleasure comes to is not
entirely clear. But even on this first hedonist strategy and without
adopting an Aristotelian account of pleasure, there is more room
for maneuver.
Few philosophers today understand pleasure along these
sensation or feeling lines, or more generally as a property of
conscious experience. Instead, the more common account
today is some form of preference theory, according to which one
is taking pleasure in an experience if, at the time, one likes it for
its own sake, in the sense of wanting to sustain and repeat it for
its felt qualities and apart from its consequences. In this view
pleasure consists in a relation between a person's preference or
attitude and her experience. The experience may be preferred
because of any number of the specific properties it has: being a
conversation with the partiarlar friend with whom one has shared
much in the past, being a novel with all the nuanced complexity
that engages our intellect and feelings, etc. And so the pleasure
will be based on whatever properties, any and all of them, affect
our preference to continue and repeat the experience for its own
sake. Thus, even the hedonist view, given this general
preference account of the nature of pleasure, is not committed to
metricity or to the homogeneity of value Nussbaum attributes to
the commensurability proponent because pleasure in this view
consists of a preference to continue and repeat for their own
sake experiences of particular, diverse sorts. Much more might
be said about such a hedonism, but since it is not a view I hold
and in order to relate my comments more closely to current
d e b a t e s in ethics and social choice theory about
commensurability, I want to turn to the second general move
available to the commensurability proponent.
Utilitarians, as Nussbaum notes, are the classic modern example
of commensurability proponents. But few utilitarians or
economists nowadays construe utility in terms of pleasure. More
common is the view that utility or value consists in the satisfaction
of preference or desire, usually qualified as some form of
corrected preferences, for example preferences made with full
knowledge of alternatives and in ideal conditions for judging. It is
important to distinguish this view from a different one with which it
is often confused and which is essentially some version of the
pleasure view. In the preference view, 'rfI desire that a state of
affairs X obtain, what has value is X obtaining; when X obtains, my
desire or preference has been satisfied. This is to be
distinguished from the satisfaction one feels (feelings of
pleasure) when one learns that the state of affairs one desired
does now obtain. In the view I am now considering it is the
satisfaction of desire, not desire satisfaction, that is valued,
though, of course, desire satisfaction may also be one of the
objects of our desires. Now in this view, what would a single
scale look like on which all values could be fitted and on which
conflicts between them could be resolved by measuring them
and then, in some arithmetic way, combining the measurements?
We have no such worked out system of measurement, and there
are very great difficufties in constructing one, but let me borrow a
sketch of one from James Griffin.
 We aim at maximizing the satisfaction of people's desires.
How great the satisfaction is is directly proportional to
how great the desire is. On certain occasions, instead of
considering a person's actual present wants, one may
consider what he will want or what he would want under
conditions of greater knowledge or imagination; this
variety of desires, of course, creates its own possibility of
conflict and problem of resolution. What we try to
measure and to attach numbers to is the distance a
desire is from indifference, in either the positive direction
(the desire that something come about) or the negative
direction (the desire that it not come about). So the
model for calculation is this. If a certain occurrence
affects n people, measure how far from indifference As,
B's etc., desires are that 'tt happen, and how far from
indifferences C's, D's, etc. desires are that it does not;
then determine whether their desires, when added, are
positive or negative.1
The important point to note about many of the difficulties
Nussbaum develops for the commensurability thesis, and which I
shall lump together as the "homogeneity implications," is that the
single unitary property, varying only in degree or amount, is no
longer found in the objects of persons' desires, where there
seems to be no such property, and no room for such a property
without missing the heterogeneity of things and experiences
that attract us. Instead, the single property varying only in degree
is in persons' desires. This leaves, so far as I can see, all the room
Nussbaum wants for diversity and heterogeneity in the objects
of persons' desires. All the complexities of an experience that
affect the value of the experience can likewise for the
commensurability proponent (desire version) affect the overall
strength of our desire for it. No homogeneity in the objects of
desire is required by this commensurability view. Nor, I believe,
do most of the unacceptable implications Nussbaum finds in the
commensurability thesis follow. The special quality of an
experience with my friend or my child cannot be replaced by an
experience with any other person; with no one else will I have

1. James Griffin, "Are There Incommensurable Values?" Philosophy

and Public Affairs Vol. 7, No.1(Fall 1977), p. 48.
the same commitment or history. This view can accept that in
difficult or tragic choices the best option may be one that a
person strongly desires to avoid and that involves foreclosing the
achievement of an irreplaceable and unique object of desire.
This commensurability view is not committed to there being no
loss-free choices or situations "in which we will be forced to
forego some genuine value." Remorse and regret in such
choices, though perhaps not full-fledged guilt, are also not
foreclosed.
It might be thought, as Nussbaum says elsewhere of modern
utilitarians, that this version of commensurability is successful
only at a "superficial level," as "a formal way of speaking that will
not very much after the nature of daily perceptions."2 N o wI quite
agree that it does not alter them to the extent she believes
modern social choice theory does, but since most of the
implications she attributes to social choice theory a r e
unacceptable, that is to the good. But does the desire theory
obtain commensurability only in a trivial sense? At least not in the
following respect. The desire view holds that what has intrinsic
value is the satisfaction of desire, and so experiences and
properties of experiences have value only to the extent that they
are desired. This is contrary to how many persons think and
speak, and in fact is just the point on which this conception of
value or of the good is criticized by many (including Nussbaum) --
it fails to recognize, the criticism goes, that some things are of
value or good (or bad) in part independent of the extent to which
they are desired. Satisfaction of malicious or sadistic desires, or
manipulated or nonautonomous desires, is not of value, and
health or eyesight or being self-determined is good for someone
even if he or she doesn't desire them, this criticism continues.
The assessment of such criticisms depends importantly on how
desires are "corrected" in the desire theory of value. It may well
be that such criticisms show that a desire or preference theory of
value or the good is ultimately unacceptable, but that is a
different matter than whether commensurability has been
established, and d e p e n d s ,I believe, on d'rfferent issues than

2. Martha Nussbaum, "Plato on Commensurability and Desire," The

Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume LVIII (1984), p. 74.
those Nussbaum raises and t h a t I have lumped together as the
"homogeneity implications."
Let me underline one difference in the way Nussbaum as well as
most others might want to speak and the way this desire view
permits. On the heterogeneity of values view, it is diverse things
such as cheesecakes and stimulating conversations that have
value. On the desire view, these are of value only if someone
desires them. Strictly, there are persons who have desires that
take objects, and what has value is the satisfaction of their
desires. But while heterogeneity proponents like Aristotle and
Nussbaum can recommend choosing the conversation or the
cheesecake because they are good, the desire theorist cannot.
He must first know what is desired before he can know what is
good to bring about -- he cannot guide character by
recommending developing a desire for conversation or
cheesecake because they are good. Many persons, including
Nussbaum in the revised version of her paper, find this one of
the least acceptable features of the desire theory of value. In
general, there are complex problems here about the extent the
language of value can be accounted for adequately by the
language of preference.
A final point. On other common understandings, the issue of the
commensurability of values raises some form of explicitly
normative question; for example, (to use Laurence Tribe's nice
case cited by Griffin) about whether a man would have his arms
and legs cut off for any number of desserts. Or alternatively,
whether there are some actions that are absolutely wrong and
such that they could not be justified by the production of good or
prevention of bad, no matter how much good or bad. Strictly, this
latter is not an issue of the commensurability of values, but of the
commensurability of wrong actions and good or bad states of
affairs. But as I understand her, these are not the issues with
which Nussbaum is concerned. In this regard, Nussbaum too
notes that "Aristotelianism asks about overall preferability." The
desire theorist does so as well, and will use his theory of the
commensurability of value to explain how judgements of overall
preferability are possible.

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