That's a common reply. However, you can simply adopt these examples to fit whatever intuitions someone has, e.g. give Z a duration of thirty years and adjust th

That's a common reply. However, you can simply adopt these examples to fit whatever intuitions someone has, e.g. give Z a duration of thirty years and adjust the other intervals accordingly. Or give it a duration of 10 years and start with 30 minutes. Likewise, you can change the levels, replace well being with money or health or pleasure, and so on. Bear in mind that Temkin only needs one counter-example. I personally think we're psychologically fit to make these comparisons and that his arguments go through. It's not very surprising, if you take into account that in multicriteria decision making cases similar to these have been analysed and discussed since the 60s, e.g. by Peter C. Fishburn and by the French/Belgium tradition. You can solve these without giving up transitivity. Technically, even just incompleteness solves the issue. My own favorite solution is lexicographic, but apparently not many reviewers like it. :(