Personal Value

Certain things, like justice, have impersonal value. Other things, like your parents, carry personal values: they have value for you. Besides whatever value they have, they are valuable to you. The philosophical literature as well as non-philosophical literature is inundated with suggestions about the kinds of thing that are good for us or, if it is a negative personal value, what is bad for us. This is a stimulating and vivid area of philosophical research, but it has tended to monopolize the notion of 'good-for', linking it necessarily to welfare or well-being. Since these more or less well-grounded pieces of advice are seldom accompanied by an analysis of the notion of 'good-for', there is a need for such an analysis. Ronnow-Rasmussen remedies this need, by offering a novel way of analyzing the notion of personal value. He defends the idea that we have reason to expand our classical value taxonomy with these personal values. By fine-tuning a pattern of value analysis which has roots in the writings of the Austrian philosopher Franz Bretano, this sort of analysis will come to cover personal values, too. In addition, Ronnow-Rasmussen makes substantial contributions to a number of issues, including hedonism vs. preferentialism, subjectivism vs. objectivism, value bearer monism vs. value bearer pluralism, and the wrong kind of reason problem -- all of which are much debated among today's value theorists. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 18 Preface......Page 7 Acknowledgements......Page 14 1. Types of Value......Page 20 1.1 Preparing the ground—different value concepts......Page 21 1.2 Isolating intrinsic value......Page 22 1.3 Isolating extrinsic final value......Page 24 1.4 Competing notions of intrinsic value......Page 26 1.5 The source of value......Page 28 1.6 Supervenience......Page 29 1.7 The Invariance Thesis......Page 31 1.8 Constitution......Page 32 1.9 Subjectivism and objectivism......Page 33 2. Fitting-attitude Analysis......Page 38 2.1 The origins......Page 39 2.2 A. C. Ewing......Page 41 2.3 The primacy of the normative over the evaluative......Page 43 2.4 Different value idioms......Page 44 2.5 The FA analysis of final positive values......Page 46 2.6 W. D. Ross’s objection......Page 49 3.1 The wrong kind of reason problem......Page 52 3.2 Dual-role attitudes......Page 56 3.3 Solving the WKR problem?......Page 57 3.4 Danielsson and Olson on the WKR problem......Page 59 3.5 The biconditional buck-passing account......Page 61 4. Mistaken Value Analyses......Page 65 4.1 Moore’s objection to good-for......Page 68 4.2 Instrumental value......Page 70 4.3 A bad approach to personal value......Page 72 5. For Someone’s Sake......Page 74 5.1 Types of attitude......Page 76 5.2 Sake, end, and objective......Page 79 5.3 Discerning attitudes......Page 82 5.4 Identifiers and justifiers......Page 87 5.5 Two kinds of FSS attitude......Page 92 5.6 Summing up......Page 94 6. Examining the Analysis......Page 96 6.1 Dropping an FSS attitude......Page 97 6.2 Non-fungible persons and identity......Page 99 6.3 Good-for and welfare......Page 102 6.4 Two sorts of personal value......Page 105 6.5 Personal intrinsic value......Page 107 6.6 Agent-relativity and private values......Page 110 6.7 Personal value and universalizability......Page 111 7. Mo(o)re Objections......Page 114 7.1 Hurka’s views on good for......Page 115 7.2 Regan’s views on good for......Page 117 7.3 Rosati and good occurring in a life......Page 118 7.4 Personal and impersonal value......Page 123 7.5 Thin-thin and thin-thick conceptions......Page 124 8. Problems and Possibilities......Page 128 8.1 Janus values......Page 129 8.2 Some counter-examples......Page 130 8.3 Darwall on welfare......Page 134 8.4 Different strategies......Page 137 8.5 Heathwood’s objection......Page 140 8.6 The good life and the argument from fetishism......Page 141 9. One Reason Dichotomy Less?......Page 145 9.1 Introductory notes......Page 146 9.2 The essentialist sense......Page 147 9.3 The number approach......Page 150 9.4 Reason-for......Page 151 9.5 Meeting the challenge......Page 156 9.6 An overcrowded boat......Page 159 9.7 More replies to the challenge......Page 160 9.8 A positive argument......Page 163 10. Value Bearers and Value Pluralism......Page 171 10.1 Extrinsic .nal values......Page 172 10.2 Hedonism and preferentialism......Page 175 10.3 Preferentialism......Page 177 10.4 Value bearers......Page 178 10.5 Value-bearer monism......Page 179 10.6 Simplicity......Page 180 10.7 Some reductions......Page 182 10.8 Separating the concrete from the abstract......Page 185 10.9 Recapitulating......Page 187 Bibliography......Page 191 C......Page 200 H......Page 201 O......Page 202 S......Page 203 Z......Page 204 Certain things, like justice, have impersonal value. Other things, like your parents, carry personal values: they have value for you. Besides whatever value they have, they are valuable to you. The philosophical literature as well as non-philosophical literature is inundated with suggestions about the kinds of thing that are good for us or, if it is a negative personal value, what is bad for us. This is a stimulating and vivid area of philosophical research, but it has tended to monopolize the notion of'good-for', linking it necessarily to welfare or well-being. Since these more or less well-grounded pieces of advice are seldom accompanied by an analysis of the notion of'good-for', there is a need for such an analysis. Rønnow-Rasmussen remedies this need, by offering a novel way of analyzing the notion of personal value. He defends the idea that we have reason to expand our classical value taxonomy with these personal values. By fine-tuning a pattern of value analysis which has roots in the writings of the Austrian philosopher Franz Brentano, this sort of analysis will come to cover personal values, too. In addition Rønnow-Rasmussen makes substatial contributions to a number of issues, including hedonism vs. preferentialism, subjectivism vs. objectivism, value bearer monism vs. value bearer pluralism, and the wrong kind of reason problem -- all of which are much debated among today's value theorists. The author offers a way of analyzing the notion of personal value by defending the idea that we have reason to expand our classical value taxonomy with these personal values. By fine-tuning a pattern of value analysis which has roots in the writings of the Austrian philosopher Franz Bretano, this sort of analysis will come to cover personal values, too. In addition, the author makes contributions to a number of issues, including hedonism vs. preferentialism, subjectivism vs. objectivism, value bearer monism vs. value bearer pluralism, and the wrong kind of reason problem -- all of which are much debated among today's value theorists Rønnow-Rasmussen examines the notion of 'good-for', and provides a new analysis of personal value that justifies its inclusion within our classical value taxonomy