On for Someone’s Sake Attitudes
Author
Summary, in English
In “Analysing Personal Value” (Jour of Ethics, Volume 11, Number 4, 2007) I explored the possibility of expanding standard value taxonomies with a new kind of values, so called personal values, i.e., values that we ascribe to things with an eye to some particular person. By fine-tuning a classic fitting-attitude analysis, it was argued that the following pattern might work,
(FAP) An object O’s positive value for a person x (i.e., x’s personal value),
consists in the existence of normative reasons for favouring O for x’s sake
One drawback with FAP has to do with the fact that there is no well-known or swift and easy way to characterize the type of “favouring O for x’s sake”- attitude referred to in FAP (so called PS-attitudes). This work attempts to remedy this deficiency. In doing so, it sets out from the idea that we should not confuse what causes us to have an attitude with that which is the intentional object of the attitude. This paper then probes to what extent it is possible to situate the defining characteristic of PS- attitudes in their intentional content. What considerably complicates this approach is the idea that attitudes are in general discerning, i.e., they are directed to objects on account of some particular property or properties of the objects to which they are directed. By considering two quite different discerning attitudes, love and admiration, it is argued that properties that figure in the intentional content of love do so (at least in typical cases) differently from the role they play in admiration. Introducing the distinction between justifiers and identifiers, which corresponds to the two roles which properties may play in the intentional content of an attitude, it is argued that when it comes to admiration properties play the role of justifiers rather than identifiers, but that in the case of love, properties are identifiers. It is next argued that the PS attitudes bear more resemblance to those attitudes that display identifiers rather than justifiers in their content.
(FAP) An object O’s positive value for a person x (i.e., x’s personal value),
consists in the existence of normative reasons for favouring O for x’s sake
One drawback with FAP has to do with the fact that there is no well-known or swift and easy way to characterize the type of “favouring O for x’s sake”- attitude referred to in FAP (so called PS-attitudes). This work attempts to remedy this deficiency. In doing so, it sets out from the idea that we should not confuse what causes us to have an attitude with that which is the intentional object of the attitude. This paper then probes to what extent it is possible to situate the defining characteristic of PS- attitudes in their intentional content. What considerably complicates this approach is the idea that attitudes are in general discerning, i.e., they are directed to objects on account of some particular property or properties of the objects to which they are directed. By considering two quite different discerning attitudes, love and admiration, it is argued that properties that figure in the intentional content of love do so (at least in typical cases) differently from the role they play in admiration. Introducing the distinction between justifiers and identifiers, which corresponds to the two roles which properties may play in the intentional content of an attitude, it is argued that when it comes to admiration properties play the role of justifiers rather than identifiers, but that in the case of love, properties are identifiers. It is next argued that the PS attitudes bear more resemblance to those attitudes that display identifiers rather than justifiers in their content.
Department/s
Publishing year
2008
Language
English
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Philosophy
Conference name
ECAP 6: Sixth European Congress of Analytic Philosophy
Conference date
2008-08-21
Status
Unpublished