Abstract
In this paper it is argued that the buck-passing analysis (BPA) of final value is not a plausible analysis of value and should be abandoned. While considering the influential wrong kind of reason problem and other more recent technical objections, this paper contends that there are broader reasons for giving up on buck-passing. It is argued that the BPA, even if it can respond to the various technical objections, is not an attractive analysis of final value. It is not attractive for two reasons: the first being that the BPA lacks the features typical of successful conceptual analyses and the second being that it is unable to deliver on the advantages that its proponents claim for it. While not offering a knock-down technical refutation of the BPA, this paper aims to show that there is little reason to think that the BPA is correct, and that it should therefore be given up as an analysis of final value.
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Notes
See Scanlon (1998) for the original account.
In fact, the argument is aimed at both the BPA and closely related views such as the fitting attitude analysis of good or final value.
E.g. ‘A good car’ or ‘a good person’.
Lang (2008) cryptically remarks that the BPA may fail as a conceptual analysis but still be a good account of value properties.
The mere presence of prior, independent intuitions about an analysandum does not alone demonstrate that it is not a good target for reduction to its analysans. However, I shall argue that there are particular reasons for being worried about this set up for the BPA.
See fn. 2 above.
Scanlon’s view about buck-passing has changed, and his current view does not have the same naturalising tendencies. See Crisp (2008) for an in-depth discussion of the most recent developments, and their upshot, in Scanlon’s view. Also note that Scanlon’s view that reason-giving properties are natural does not entail naturalism about reasons themselves.
Alas, even in the original version the thesis is not completely clear about metaphysics versus semantics: ‘to call something valuable is to say that it has other properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with respect to it.’ Scanlon (1998) pg. 96.
I follow Crisp (2005) in doing so.
This advantage is developed by Skorupski (2007). See the following section for more discussion of his view.
Louis DeRosset pressed me to withdraw this concession, because it is doubtful that the BPA in any interesting way explains judgement internalism. Rather, the BPA is an account that has judgement internalism as part of its description: what it is for one to believe something to be valuable is for one to believe that one has a reason to favour it. That is (rational) judgement internalism of a kind, and so the BPA has not explained why judgement internalism is true. Rather, it is an account on which it could not be false. Folke Tersman also pressed a similar worry to me.
See Piller (2006) for more on the distinction.
See Reisner (2008a) for a fuller account of the ways in which goodness-reasons can defeat truth-reasons.
Jessica Pepp and Folke Tersman have both pointed out to me a worry about the analogy between correctness and truth. While both correctness and truth may play regulatory roles for propositional attitudes, truth is a property of the content of the attitude, as well as the attitude itself, in the case of belief. Correctness is not a property of the contents of pro-attitudes.
At least insofar as one thinks belief has an aim.
Although it may well be implausible. See Steglich-Petersen (2006).
See Williamson (2000) for an account of knowledge as the aim of belief.
Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen observed to me that there may be another problem with treating correctness as analogous to truth. Because correctness is supposed to be a normative notion, one that matches content-reasons with pro-attitudes, it is tempting to think that truth just is correctness for belief. If this is so, then we have an analysis of correctness for belief (as truth) and might be led to wonder why, if an analysis can be given for belief, one cannot be given for pro-attitudes.
See Reisner (2008b) for more on blocked ascent.
See Skorupski (2007) fn 20. It should be noted that although Skorupski’s view requires him to accept one difficult result, it has several advantages over the DO proposal. The difficult result arises from the blocked ascent argument and has been discussed already. The advantage Skorupski’s view gains is quite considerable. Danielsson and Olson must explain why something’s being both a content reason and a holding reason has different normative significance to something’s just being a holding reason (and not a content reason). Because Skorupski denies that there are the latter kind of reasons, there are no concerns for him about why the differing kinds of reason would have differing moral significance.
Crisp (2005) raises a series of objections that I take ultimately to trade on this problem, although they would stand independently were one not to accept my more general argument.
Mulligan (1998) defends the view that successful buck-passing style analyses must provide a one-to-one match between attitudes and values.
A buck-passer might argue that the difficulty in finding different appropriate reactive attitudes to match the values of being graceful and being elegant suggests that these are not in fact distinct values. However, there are some differences in the circumstances of their application; one might apply elegant to a mathematical proof, but one would be unlikely to apply graceful to it (Irinia Meketa suggested this example to me).
Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen and Jan Österberg have separately suggested to me that this option is open to the buck-passer.
Perhaps a defender of the BPA would advertise this as an advantage for it, as the truth of the BPA would settle an important outstanding issue in value theory.
See fn 30.
Skorupski suggests that there may be full translatability in both directions. Symmetry for him will be less of a concern than it may be for other buck-passers, as he is in part aiming to give a general account of normative, i.e. non-descriptive, vocabulary, the mark of which on his view is that it can be translated into reasons vocabulary.
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that doing so would be worthwhile.
Skorupski does not think, however, that the reverse would be correct; the important thing to note when there is a one-to-one correspondence in vocabulary is that some further argument is required to show which direction, if any, is the proper one for an analysis.
Consider what I shall call an ‘o-form’ sentence: Jane ought that Jane go to the store. Here we have a proposition, Jane goes to the store, governed by a the propositional operator ought, which is indexed to Jane (at the level of propositions, ‘Jane’ is its subject when viewed sententially).
Deontic logicians often give some account of ‘it ought to be the case that’ oughts. I think this is a mistake, if one is trying to provide a logic of obligation. If one is trying to produce a formal semantics for the English word ‘ought’, then it may be appropriate, but the value of the latter exercise strikes me as limited. I favour reading ‘ought to be’ as expressing an ideal evaluative claim, meaning ‘it would be best that’, or something along those lines.
See Crisp (2008) for an extensive discussion of this issue.
This is suggested by Lang (2008).
Michael Zimmerman and David Chalmers pointed this out to me.
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Acknowledgements
This paper was originally written for the Workshop on Kinds of Value and Kinds of Value Bearers at The European Conference in Analytic Philosophy 6. I would like to thank the organisers, Wlodek Rabinowicz and Kevin Mulligan for giving me the opportunity to present this paper in Poland. I have received valuable feedback from those who attended presentations of the first version of this paper at McGill University’s Faculty and Graduate Student Work in Progress Seminar and at the workshop at ECAP 6. Comments on a revised version of the paper from presentations at the Boston University Philosophy Department and the University of Uppsala Philosophy Department were also extremely valuable. I have not been able to remember everyone who has made helpful suggestions, as I have received a great many of them. Necessarily, then, the list of people whom I should thank individually is longer than the list of those whom I shall thank individually. With apologies to those who belong on this list, but who have been left off by forgetfulness on my part, I would like to thank for their very valuable comments and criticisms: Johan Brännmark, John Broome, Roger Crisp, Louis DeRosset, Jamie Dreier, Iwao Hirose, Kent Hurtig, Kevin Mulligan, Calvin Normore, Jonas Olson, Jan Österberg, Jessica Pepp, Christian Piller, Wlodek Rabinowicz, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, John Skorupski, Daniel Star, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, Folke Tersman, and Michael Zimmerman.
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Reisner, A.E. Abandoning the Buck Passing Analysis of Final Value. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 12, 379–395 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9191-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9191-5