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| Value Incommensurability and the Handling of Hard Cases with Substantive Disputes |
| Lu Xingfu, Liu Jiwei |
| School of Administrative Law, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing401120, China |
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Abstract Value incommensurability originally meant that different values cannot be placed on the same cardinal scale, and later it was generally referred to as non-conventional comparative relations, including the narrow sense of incommensurability, hard choices, strong value superiority, weak value superiority and pluralism of irreducible value. Hard cases with substantive disputes are related to a broad usage of value incommensurability called hard choices. In order to correctly understand them and provide standardized suggestions for the settlement of corresponding hard cases, it is necessary to further clarify the related concepts of incommensurability, the classification of hard cases and how to respond to hard cases by reasoning.The hardship of hard choices manifests itself in the depletion of reasons as caused by the multi-dimensional comparison of values, for which there are three explanations: semantic indeterminacy, metaphysical indeterminacy and uncertainty. The explanations of indeterminacy deny that there is a uniquely right answer for hard cases. In contrast, the explanation of uncertainty argues the uniquely right answer exists but people may not find it or mistake it due to ignorance. From the point of view of rationality, it is correct to deny it. Because of the existence of substantive disputes, the corresponding hard cases cannot be solved by flipping a coin. Policymakers have to make a choice in recognition of the fact that both options are right.The classification of hard cases with substantive disputes is based on the classification of hard choices, which is related to the pluralism about value properties. The three most important values related to practical reason are moral, prudent and aesthetic. Hard cases mainly involve moral and prudent. Therefore, hard cases can be divided into hard cases caused by prudent conflicts, hard cases caused by moral conflicts and hard cases caused by the incommensurability between moral and prudent. The latter two kinds of cases related to moral value are more important in theory. Hard cases with substantive disputes mainly refer to the hard cases caused by moral conflicts.In dealing with hard cases, case consistency should be taken as the core reasoning method to distinguish the substantive disputes from the superficial disputes and to reveal value conflicts. In the absence of uniform decision-making, policymakers should respect subjectivity and diversity as much as possible. If a uniform decision-making is necessary, the compromise strategy can best guarantee the fairness. If none of the above strategies is suitable, the policymakers must make a biased choice. At this time, some strategies with strong subjectivity or obvious favoritism should not be adopted, instead, there should be some kind of generalized procedural resolution strategy that recognizes the existence of conflicts. For example, in a strategy to avoid future conflicts, even if the choice is biased, it is still reasonable for policymakers to say that they prefer a procedural decision-making strategy to favoring one side over the other. In most cases, the strategy of strengthening one side’s argument and weakening the other side’s argument is unavoidable, but arbitrary strengthening and weakening will lead to the danger of disunity of methods. It seems feasible and necessary to pursue a consistent preference for a procedural approach.
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Received: 25 March 2024
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2024, Vol. 54 
