Parity versus Ignorance.

This article examines why hard decisions are difficult, focusing on epistemicism—the view that hard choices are hard because one is epistemically ignorant about which option is better, despite the options being fully comparable by standard value relations: better, worse, or equally good. It contrasts epistemicism with alternative accounts, such as incomparabilism (options cannot be compared), parity theory (a fourth relation of "on a par" exists), and vagueness or indeterminacy of value relations. The author argues that epistemicism better explains the structural features of hard choices, addresses key objections like the "Small Improvement Argument," and aligns with limitations in human discriminatory and reflective capacities, supported by an anti-luminosity argument showing that knowledge of betterness is not always possible. The paper also responds to challenges regarding first-person authority in evaluative judgments and suggests that epistemic ignorance extends to normative and moral decisions, especially in close cases, while maintaining that epistemicism is a conservative and plausible explanation for the hardness of choice.