6 The Mere Commodity Objection
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The Argument
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in the process of buying and selling the painting, people are failing to appreciate and respect the painting’s
Note:IL TIMORE DI CHI TEME LA MERCIFICAZIONE
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having merely instrumental
Note:SI TEME CHE TUTTO SIA STRUM
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reverence or respect.
Note:CIÒ CHE SI VORREBBE
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offer certain goods and services for sale necessarily shows that one regards those things as mere commodities.
Note:LA PORNOGRAFIA DEL COMMERCIO
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Commodities Vs. Mere Commodities
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A commodity just is, by definition, a thing governed by norms distinctive of the market, and the market norms are fundamental amoral,
Note:PER MOLTI
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it is always an open question whether a person who buys or sells an object actually views the object as a commodity
Note:MEGLIO L APPROCCIO EMPIRICO
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Let us say that a commodity is simply anything with a price tag,
Note:UNA DEF CHE NN SEMBRA AVERE CONNOTATI MORALI
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A mere commodity is something with a price tag, exchanged on a market, that is properly viewed as merely having instrumental value,
Note:AL CONTRARIO...ES MONETA
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it is an interesting, substantive thesis to say that a person buying and selling something regards the object as a mere commodity.
Note:IL CONCETTO DI MERCE PURA FACILITA L APPROCCIO EMPIRICO
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we would need to conduct additional psychological research
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Commodities, But Not Mere Commodities
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Consider pets.
Note:ANALOGIA
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pets are routinely bought and sold.
Note:MA NN SONO UNA MERA MERCE
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many people cherish their purchased pets,
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many pet breeders have a deep love for the animals they breed.
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Alfred Barnes accumulated one of the most prized collections of masterpieces
Note:COLLEZIONISTI D ARTE
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Many Catholic bookstores sell candles, rosaries, prayer cards,
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The Cavanaghs are devout Catholics
Note:L IMPRESA CHE PRODUCE TUTTE LE OSTIE USA
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when people buy and sell certain objects, this tends over time to cause them to view the objects as mere commodities.
Note:RISPOSTA... UNA TESI PIÙ MODERATA
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this new argument is a corruption objection, not a semiotic objection.
Note:SNATURATA L OB
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would need to be substantiated with empirical psychological
Note:NN È UN B FILOSOFICA
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bear the burden of proof,
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The Meaning of Markets
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the word “market.”
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voluntary exchanges
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purely selfish motivations,
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that leaves open the possibility that there are schmarkets,
Note:IL MERCATO SENZA EGOISMO
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lack all the bad attitudes
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it becomes an empirical question whether any given sale in the real world is in the markets or the schmarkets.
Note:MARKET O SCHMARKET?
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all actual markets are schmarkets.
Note:ANTICIPO TESI
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what motivates people
Note:EGOISMO O DESIDERIO AUTENTICO? EMPIRIA
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it’s at most an objection to the attitudes buyers and sellers
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It’s a complaint not about what is being sold, but how
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A Note on the Meaning of Prices
Note:TttttttttttLA CARDINALITÀ DELL ECON RESTA SOGGETTIVA
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lengthy attacks against cost-benefit analysis
Note:CRITICA ASSOCIATA
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There are not merely many different valuable things, but many different kinds of values
Note:LA TESI
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deciding between saving the rainforest or allowing more industrial production,
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even if one accepts that 1) there are a plurality of different kinds of values, and 2) the way we value these different things is different, it’s still possible that the value of these goods can be expressed on a single, cardinal scale.
Note:IL CFR È POSSIBILE
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whether one option is better than the other
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we can generate an “ordinary utility function”
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economist isn’t asserting here that all values are subjective, either. Instead, the economist remains agnostic.
Note:NON UN RELATIVISYA
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we’ll be able to translate any ordinal utility function into a cardinal utility
Note:VON NEUMANN
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all such preferences can be represented on a single continuous numerical scale.
Note:RAPPRESENTAZIONE NN VALORI UNICI...IL SOGGETTIVISMO RIGUARDA LA NN CFRTABILITÀ NN LA NON RAPPRESENTABILITÀ
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not everything is fungible with money,
Note:CONSEGUENZA
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they need to show (not merely assert) some values are radically incommensurate, such that we cannot compare them in any way, or have any preferences between them.
Note:CIÒ CHE DEVE DIMOSTRARE L ANTICOMOD
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Bach was brilliant and Darwin was brilliant. They have a different kind of brilliance—
Note:ES. Dell ANTICOMOD
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it seems obvious to us that adding brilliance to one eventually tilts the judgment in favor of one over the other.
Note:DIMOSTRAZIONE DI UN CFR POSSIBILE
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Had Darwin, say, achieved everything Einstein did plus what Darwin in fact did, he would be more brilliant, tout court, than Bach.
Note:ES
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we just don’t have enough information to quite make the comparison.
Note:FORSE MEGLIO DIRE COSÌ
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