I still don’t understand what you’re saying about that first objection. What’s this model in which it “cannot be true” that neither A nor B has higher status than the other?
If you’re saying that that can never happen in a “purely relative” system, then what I don’t understand is why you think that. If you’re saying something else, then what I don’t understand is what other thing you’re saying.
It seems to me that there’s no inconsistency at all between a “purely relative” system and equal or incomparable statuses. Equal status for A and B means that all status effects work the same way for A as for B (and in particular that if there’s some straightforward status-driven competition between A and B then, at least as far as status goes, they come out equal). Incomparable status would probably mean that there are different sorts of status effect, and some of them favour A and some favour B, such that in some situations A wins and in some B wins.
I don’t dispute (indeed, I insist on) the point that it’s vanishingly rare to have no other factors. And I bet you’re right that cleanly separating status effects from other effects is very difficult. It’s not clear to me that this is much of an objection to “purely relative” models of status in contrast to other models. I guess the way in which it might be is: what distinguishes a “purely relative” model is that all you are entitled to say about status is what you can determine from examining who wins in various “status contests”, and since pure status contests are very rare and disentangling the effects in impure status contests is hard you may not be able to tell much about who wins. That’s all true, but I think there are parallel objections to models of “non-relative” type: if it’s hard to tell whether A outranks B because status effects are inseparable from other confounding effects, I think that makes it just as hard to tell (e.g.) what numerical level of status should be assigned to A or to B.
I still don’t understand what you’re saying about that first objection. What’s this model in which it “cannot be true” that neither A nor B has higher status than the other?
If you’re saying that that can never happen in a “purely relative” system, then what I don’t understand is why you think that. If you’re saying something else, then what I don’t understand is what other thing you’re saying.
It seems to me that there’s no inconsistency at all between a “purely relative” system and equal or incomparable statuses. Equal status for A and B means that all status effects work the same way for A as for B (and in particular that if there’s some straightforward status-driven competition between A and B then, at least as far as status goes, they come out equal). Incomparable status would probably mean that there are different sorts of status effect, and some of them favour A and some favour B, such that in some situations A wins and in some B wins.
I don’t dispute (indeed, I insist on) the point that it’s vanishingly rare to have no other factors. And I bet you’re right that cleanly separating status effects from other effects is very difficult. It’s not clear to me that this is much of an objection to “purely relative” models of status in contrast to other models. I guess the way in which it might be is: what distinguishes a “purely relative” model is that all you are entitled to say about status is what you can determine from examining who wins in various “status contests”, and since pure status contests are very rare and disentangling the effects in impure status contests is hard you may not be able to tell much about who wins. That’s all true, but I think there are parallel objections to models of “non-relative” type: if it’s hard to tell whether A outranks B because status effects are inseparable from other confounding effects, I think that makes it just as hard to tell (e.g.) what numerical level of status should be assigned to A or to B.