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Summation, Variety, and Indeterminate Value

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Abstract

In this paper, I consider two sorts of objections to summative theories of value. The first objection concerns “indeterminate” value. The second concerns the importance of variety. I argue that both objections pose serious problems for the summative approach. I also argue that if we accept certain plausible views about the value of variety, we should reject certain forms of argument concerning what sorts of states have intrinsic value.

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Notes

  1. There is a complication here. Strictly speaking, it is only states of affairs that obtain that are intrinsically good or bad. Consider the state of affairs, Jones is pleased +5 at t. If that state of affairs does not obtain then it is not intrinsically good. Still, we can say that it is necessarily such that if it obtains, then it is intrinsically good. Sometimes philosophers, including myself, talk about cases of pleasure (or displeasure) in the good (or bad). In some of these cases, the pleasure is taken in a state of affairs that does not obtain and so, strictly speaking, taken in something that is not intrinsically good, but would be good were it to obtain. Such talk is somewhat loose, but with care it need not be misleading. With the reader’s indulgence I shall allow myself to speak in this way.

  2. Feldman, 2001, p. 324. This is Feldman’s LIV2.

  3. Feldman, 2001, p. 325. This is Feldman’s WIV2.

  4. While Feldman holds that states of affairs that have basic intrinsic value have it to a determinate degree, others have suggested an even stronger stance. Michael Zimmerman, for example, writes that “if a state has intrinsic value, then it has such value to a determinate degree” (p. 143). Zimmerman suggests here that not only the basics have a determinate degree of intrinsic value, but that anything that has intrinsic value must have it to a determinate degree. But, as we shall see, this is not Zimmerman’s final view of the matter.

  5. I should note that some philosophers think the problem of indeterminancy is even more pervasive that I suggest here. Consider the states of affairs:

    1. (i)

      P is pleased to degree +7 at t.

    2. (ii)

      S is pleased to degree +5 at t’ and P is pleased to degree + 7 at t.

    One reader suggests that while (i) has a determinate value, (ii) has none. Of course, since (ii) is neither a world nor a life, LIV and WIV imply nothing about its value. Still, I am not sure why one should think the value of (ii) is indeterminate. It seems plausible to me that if certain simple forms of hedonism are true and if (ii) is a conjunction of two basic intrinsic value states, then the intrinsic value of (ii) would be the sum of those two basics. On some simple forms of hedonism the value of (ii) would be +12.

  6. I admit this case is farfetched, but it seems no worse than similar hypothetical cases raised in objections to coherence theories of justification.

  7. Cf. Feldman’s discussion of compassionate suffering in Pleasure and the Good Life, pp. 157–58.

References

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  1. The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Noah Lemos

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  1. Noah Lemos
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Lemos, N. Summation, Variety, and Indeterminate Value. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 13, 33–44 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9171-9

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