Suppose, for something to “better” or “worse”, it would have to surpass some absolute threshold of “goodness”. This would mean “betterness” is no longer transitive with “worseness”.
If this were the case, then it’s possible for American colonization to still be worse than Danish colonization without Danish colonization being better than American colonization. Neither would meet the requirement for being “better” and as such are incomparable, but both would be meet the requirement of being “worse” and can be compared in that respect.
OK but that’s not how people generally use “better” or “worse.” I think transitivity – and reflexivity – are generally respected by people’s usage of the terms.
A thought experiment:
Suppose, for something to “better” or “worse”, it would have to surpass some absolute threshold of “goodness”. This would mean “betterness” is no longer transitive with “worseness”.
If this were the case, then it’s possible for American colonization to still be worse than Danish colonization without Danish colonization being better than American colonization. Neither would meet the requirement for being “better” and as such are incomparable, but both would be meet the requirement of being “worse” and can be compared in that respect.
OK but that’s not how people generally use “better” or “worse.” I think transitivity – and reflexivity – are generally respected by people’s usage of the terms.
That’s just silly. Would it be better to have someone break one of your arms or two?
Eh… One.
Or… two, if you have an Oedipus complex.
Nice