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Book ChapterDOI

Values and Secondary Qualities

TLDR
The subjectivity of value is a necessary condition for the existence of objective values that values form part of what John Mackie called "the fabric of the world" as mentioned in this paper, which is a view from nowhere.
Abstract
Some arguments for the subjectivity of value are premised on the absence of any reference to values in the objective world as described by the natural sciences. According to these arguments, it is a necessary condition for the existence of objective values that values form part of what John Mackie called ‘the fabric of the world’ (Mackie 1977, 15). On this view, objectivity entails mind independence: the domain of objectivity is a domain of existence independent of all thought and experience of it. It is a domain that could form the content of a representation that presupposes no particular perspective on the world — what has variously been called ‘the absolute conception’, or a View from nowhere’ (c.f. Williams 1985; Nagel 1986). Given these assumptions, the subjectivity of value follows from the further claim that values are not mind independent entities with a non-eliminable place in an absolute conception of reality.1 Given that we can only make sense of values with reference to a perspective on the world of beings disposed to value some things over others, there are no objective values, and some form of subjectivism about value must be true.2

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

A Rich Landscape of Affordances

TL;DR: The authors argue that the affordances an environment offers to an animal are dependent on the skills the animal possesses and that the landscape of affordances we inhabit as humans is very rich and resourceful.
Journal ArticleDOI

The emotional basis of moral judgments

TL;DR: The authors argue that moral facts are response-dependent: the bad just is that which cases disapprobation in a community of moralizers and a form of motivational internalism is true: ordinary moral judgments are intrinsically motivating, and all non-motivating moral judgment are parasitic on these.
Journal ArticleDOI

Seeing What to Do: Affective Perception and Rational Motivation

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational motivation can only be established by reference to emotion, which can non-inferentially justify judgements which in turn can justify actions, and conclude that the Aristotelian account of practical reason and ethics emerges from integrating the emotions into practical reasoning.
Journal ArticleDOI

Emotions and Formal Objects

TL;DR: In this article, the authors defend a theory according to which emotions do not respond to axiological information, but to non-axiological reasons, and they allocate fundamental roles to the formal objects of emotions while dispensing with the problematic features of other theories.
References
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Book

Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong

J. L. Mackie
TL;DR: The authors argues that our every-day moral codes are an "error theory" based on the presumption of moral facts which, he persuasively argues, don't exist, and refutation of such facts is based on their metaphysical 'queerness' and the observation of cultural relativity.
Book

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy

Robert Audi
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a preface dictionary of special symbols and logical notations, and a list of selected names not occurring as headwords, as well as an index of selected words not appearing as headword.
Journal ArticleDOI

A Rich Landscape of Affordances

TL;DR: The authors argue that the affordances an environment offers to an animal are dependent on the skills the animal possesses and that the landscape of affordances we inhabit as humans is very rich and resourceful.
Journal ArticleDOI

The emotional basis of moral judgments

TL;DR: The authors argue that moral facts are response-dependent: the bad just is that which cases disapprobation in a community of moralizers and a form of motivational internalism is true: ordinary moral judgments are intrinsically motivating, and all non-motivating moral judgment are parasitic on these.
Journal ArticleDOI

Seeing What to Do: Affective Perception and Rational Motivation

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational motivation can only be established by reference to emotion, which can non-inferentially justify judgements which in turn can justify actions, and conclude that the Aristotelian account of practical reason and ethics emerges from integrating the emotions into practical reasoning.
Trending Questions (1)
What are some critiques of subjective theories of value?

Some critiques of subjective theories of value argue that they rely on the absence of objective values in the natural world.