other categories: the logical form of the mode of being of a relation is more polyadic
than that of the modes of being of the other categories. Hence it is the worst (or
“least”) of all of them. But because there is comparability between the modes in
question, there is also a comparability between entities enjoying these modes: a
relation is“less of a being”than an accident in the sense that it has a worse order
of being, and this is because of the kind of straightforward comparison made between
the adicities of the modes of being these entities enjoy. (These remarks constitute a
complaint against premise 1 rather than 2.)
Let’s assume though that Aristotle meant what I mean by degree of being rather
than order of being. Even so, premise 2 is neither obviously asserted by Aristotle nor
obviously true. In theMetaphysicspassage Shields cites, Aristotle seems to assert that
somebeings, namely relatives, are worse beings than all other beings. But it does not
follow from this passage thatallbeings are comparable with respect to how much
being they enjoy.
To see this, note that the friend of ways and degrees of being needn’t takex has n
units of beingas the basic notion. She might opt instead to take the comparative
relationx has at least as much being as yas basic. She should say something about the
logical properties of this relation: it is intuitive that it is reflexive, transitive, and non-
symmetric. But she needn’t hold that the relation iscomparablein the sense that, for
anyxandy, eitherxhas more being thany,oryhas more being thanx,orxis equal
in being toy.
Arguably, some relations are comparative without being comparable, although
examples are controversial. Consider the relationx has at least as much intrinsic
value as y. Many states of affairs have intrinsic value, including those in which
someone experiences some pleasure and those in which someone knows something.
There is at least limited comparability: it is intrinsically better to know whether
God exists than it is to experience a very minor pleasure. But it is not obvious that
every possible episode of pleasure is less than, greater than, or equal in value to every
possible episode of knowledge.^25
And note that it is not obvious thatx is more natural than yis comparable. In
general, from the fact that a relation is comparative, and hence allows for some true
comparative claims, it does not automatically follow that it is comparable.
Moreover, a second way of capturing the idea that there are modes of being is by
claiming thatx has at least as much being as yfails to be comparable. Say that
somethingxhas amaximum degree of beingjust in case there is noysuch thatyhas
as least as much being asxbutxdoes not have at least as much being asy. On this
picture, if there are ways of being—different ways to be real—then there are some
things that have a maximum degree of being but are such that none of them has at
(^25) See Chang (2002) for relevant discussion. Note that Chang introduces another comparative relation
into the discussion that she calls“parity.”It would be interesting if relative being could induce relations of
parity of this sort, but I won’t pursue this issue further.