Are Hard Cases Vague Cases?

Abstract

In a “hard case” of comparison between two items, it seems that one is not better or worse than the other and yet nor are they equally good. A common explanation of such cases is that appearances are deceiving: it is indeterminate – vague – which relation holds. I offer two arguments against thinking that hard cases are cases of vagueness. First, arbitrary stipulation in cases of vagueness resolves the vagueness but arbitrary stipulation in hard cases leaves “resolutional remainder.” Second, vagueness prohibits “normative leakage” – that is, making a series of choices based on comparisons in which you end up with something worse than what you could have had, while hard cases rationally permit such leakage. Indeed, it could be said part of the point of hard cases is to allow rational agents to change normative direction despite the normative costs of doing so. I end by describing how “parity,” a fourth, sui generis way items can be compared, solves both of the problems faced by vagueness. Hard cases, I suggest, are cases in which items are on a par.