Picking and Choosing

JL he notion of reasoned choice is central to most discussions of decision and action. It is usually anchored, in the more formal of these discussions, in a binary relation of preference over alternatives. The preference relation being but a partial ordering, however, it is quite standardly augmented by the equivalence relation of indifference to render it complete. This, then, is where the notion of indifference enters the picture and this is usually where it is left: as merely subservient to the notion of preference, as a mere device in virtue of which the latter is made amenable to satisfactory systematization. But does it deserve to be left there? This paper raises some philosophical questions that may be asked about the notion of indifference and attempts to answer some of them. It is a plea not to be indifferent to indifference.