Trulib:
I read part of the article, and he clarifies use of the term. Here it is:
“Human choice by its very nature involves preference for the things that the acting person does—more precisely, it involves preference for certain things over other things that the person also could have done, but did not do because of the very choice he made. We express the same fact in different words when we say that the things he does have a higher value for him than the things he does not do.” p.88
My criticism wouldn’t apply to this.
But it would apply to your use of the term “top.”
It is the same principle as was discussed in this thread with I.Ryan:
The notion that someone had a value that was “on top” and another value that was “beneath” it.
In Hulsmann’s article, if we wanted to press the point, we could try to press it w/r/t his repeated use of the notion of “value spread,” and ask in what sense the two values are “spread apart.”?
Probably best discussed in another thread.
Adam