Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen

The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro‐attitudes and Value*

According to an influential tradition in value analysis, to be valuable is to be a fitting object of a pro-attitude. If it is fitting to favor an object for its own sake, then, on this view, the object has final value, that is, it is valuable for its own sake. If it is fitting to have a pro-attitude toward an object for the sake of its effects, then its value is instrumental. And so on. Disvalue is connected in an analogous way to contra-attitudes instead. Apart from the linkage between value and attitudes, what is distinctive for this kind of analysis, at least on some of its readings, is that it establishes a connection between the axiological and the deontic notions: value on this approach is explicated in terms of the stance that should be taken toward the object. That it is fitting to have a certain attitude, that there are reasons to have it, or that the attitude in question is appropriate or called for, are different ways to express this deontic claim. Consequently, an important advantage of the “fitting-attitudes” analysis, or the FA analysis for short, is that it removes the air of mystery from the normative ‘compellingness’ of values. (Less)

A Distinction in Value: Intrinsic and for its Own Sake

The paper argues that the final value of an object, i.e., its value for its own sake, need not be intrinsic. It need not supervene on the object’s internal properties. Extrinsic final value, which accrues to things (or persons) in virtue of their relational features, cannot be traced back to the intrinsic value of states that involve these things together with their relations. On the opposite, such states, insofar as they are valuable at all, derive their value from the things involved. The endeavour to reduce thing-values to state-values is largely motivated by a mistaken belief that appropriate responses to value must consist in preferring and/or promoting. A pluralist approach to value analysis obviates the need for reduction: the final value of a thing or a person can be given an independent interpretation in terms of the appropriate thing- or person-oriented responses: admiration, love, respect, protection, cherishing, etc.

Recent Work on Intrinsic Value

Recent Work on Intrinsic Value brings together for the first time many of the most important and influential writings on the topic of intrinsic value to have appeared in the last half-century. During this period, inquiry into the nature of intrinsic value has intensified to such an extent that at the moment it is one of the hottest topics in the field of theoretical ethics. The contributions to this volume have been selected in such a way that all of the fundamental questions concerning the nature of intrinsic value are treated in depth and from a variety of viewpoints. These questions include how to understand the concept of intrinsic value, what sorts of things can have intrinsic value, and how to compute intrinsic value. The editors have added an introduction that ties these questions together and places the contributions in context, and they have also provided an extensive bibliography. The result is a comprehensive, balanced, and detailed picture of current thinking about intrinsic value, one that provides an indispensable backdrop against which future writings on the topic may be assessed. (Less)

Instrumental value – strong and weak

What does it mean that an object has instrumental value? While some writers seem to think it means that the object bears a value, and that instrumental value accordingly is a kind of value, other writers seem to think that the object is not a value bearer but is only what is conducive to something of value. Contrary to what is the general view among philosophers of value, I argue that if instrumental value is a kind of value, then it is a kind of extrinsic final value.

Tropic of value

In Rabinowicz & Ronnow-Rasmussen (1999), we defended the following claims: (i) Not only states of affairs, or facts, but also concrete objects, such as things or persons, may have final value (value for their own sake); (ii) The final value of a concrete object need not be intrinsic, i.e., it need not be exclusively based on the internal (non-relational) properties of its bearer; (iii) The final value of a concrete object is not reducible to the value of some states of affairs that involve the object in question. Our arguments for (i) – (iii) have been challenged. This paper is an attempt to respond to some of these challenges, viz. those that concern the reducibility issue. The discussion presupposes a Brentano-inspired account of value in terms of fitting responses to value bearers. Attention is given to a yet another type of reduction proposal, according to which the ultimate bearers of final value are abstract particulars (so-called tropes) rather than abstract states or facts. While the proposal is attractive (if one is prepared to allow for the existence of tropes), it confronts serious difficulties. To recognise tropes as potential bearers of final value, along with other objects, is one thing; but to reduce the final value of concrete objects to the final value of tropes is another matter. (Less)

Tropic of Value

The authors of this paper earlier argued that concrete objects, such as things or persons, may have final value (value for their own sake), which is not reducible to the value of states of affairs that concern the object in question. Our arguments have been challenged. This paper is an attempt to respond to some of these challenges, viz. those that concern the reducibility issue. The discussion presupposes a Brentano-inspired account of value in terms of fitting responses to value bearers. Attention is given to a yet another type of reduction proposal, according to which the ultimate bearers of final value are abstract particulars (so-called tropes) rather than abstract states or facts. While the proposal is attractive ((fone entertains the existence of tropes), it confronts serious difficulties. To recognise tropes as potential bearers of final value, along with other objects, is one thing; but to reduce the final value of concrete objects to the final value of tropes is another matter.

Love, Value and Supervenience

Abstract People are prone to ascribe value to persons they love. However, the relation between love and value is far from straightforward. This is particularly evident given certain views on the nature of love. Setting out from the idea that what causes us to have an attitude towards an object need not be found in the intentional content of the attitude, this paper depicts love as an attitude that takes non‐fungible persons as intentional objects. Taking this view as a starting point, the paper shows why it is difficult to combine with certain views on value. The main challenge comes from the idea that value judgments are universalizable. This view squares badly with the thought that the people whom we love are irreplaceable. Introducing the idea that properties may have different functions in the intentional content of the attitude, this paper determines what precisely it is about love that makes it hard to combine with universalizability. Moreover, it suggests two ways of meeting this challenge.

Hedonism, Preferentialism, and Value Bearers

Hedonism and preferentialism are two popular theories about what has final value, i.e. is valuable for its own sake. The latter theory is customarily portrayed as the wider of these, in that it ascribes value to much more than pleasures, viz., to any object of a final preference. By examining the metaphysical underpinnings of these views, it is argued that a fundamental issue between these theories concerns the question “what are the fundamental bearers of final value?” While hedonism is here defined as the view that ascribes final value only to concrete sensations of pleasure, preferentialism is initially understood as claiming that final value accrues to the objects of preferences. Given that such objects are often assumed to be abstract entities, hedonists might launch a possible argument against preferentialism, viz., that since value on a preferentialist reading only accrues to abstract objects (states of affairs), preferentialists are debarred from valuing what hedonists value (concrete sensations). Various replies with which a preferentialist might counter this objection are examined. However, it is concluded that these suggestions are not convincing. (Less)

Buck-passing Personal Values

So-called fitting-attitude analyses or buck-passing accounts of value have lately received much attention among philosophers of value. These analyses set out from the idea that values must be understood in terms of attitudinal responses that we have reason to or that it is fitting or that we ought to have regarding the valuable object. This work examines to what extent this kind of analysis also can be applied to so-called personal values – value-for, rather than to the impersonal value period which has been the standard analysandum. The shift from impersonal to personal values can, it is argued, be taken without any major change to the pattern. It is not the normative element that needs to be changed in the analysis but rather the kind of attitude – what is required is that the attitudes all have to be so called ‘for someone’s sake’ attitudes.

For Kevin’s Sake

The idiom ‘for someone’s sake’ plays a central role in recent attempts to understand the distinction between impersonal values and personal values—e.g. between what is valuable or good, period, and what is valuable for or good for someone. In the first section, three historical approaches to this distinction are outlined. Sect. 4.2 presents a modified fitting-attitude (FA) analysis of final ‘value-for’ interpreting value-for in terms of there being a reason to favour something ‘for someone’s sake’. Sect. 4.3 outlines two arguments against this sort of modified analysis, and then indicates what the rejection of these arguments would involve. This section also identifies an ambiguity in the analysis deriving from the fact that ‘sake’ may be used either evaluatively or nonevaluatively (descriptively). In Sect. 4.4, the modified FA analysis is further clarified. Sect. 4.5 focuses on Kevin Mulligan’s recent suggestion that we are struck by personal value; finally, in Sect. 4.6, it is shown that an FA analysis admitting of two varieties of goodness may help us understand a certain kind of case that appears paradoxical as long as we assume that there is good, period, and no good-for.