The Value Gap

Evaluations about what is good (period) and what is good for someone shape much of ethics. The two value notions ‘good’ and ‘good for’ mark the deep-rooted divide between the impersonally and personally valuable—the value divide on which The Value Gap centres. Past and contemporary philosophers have argued it is a mistake to believe that these two value notions give rise to unresolvable value conflicts. This book argues that they are wrong. Part I considers two views to that effect, which share the idea that one of the two value notions is either flawed or at best conceptually dependent on the other notion. The views disagree, however, about whether it is good or good-for that is the flawed concept. These approaches deny the central idea of this work, namely that goodness and goodness-for are independent value notions that cannot be fully understood in terms of one another. Part II provides an analysis of impersonal and personal goodness in terms of a fitting-attitude analysis. By elaborating a more nuanced understanding of the analysis’ key elements—reasons and pro- and con-attitudes—the book challenges a common idea, namely that our beliefs about practical and moral dilemmas can be dismissed as being conceptually confused. The gap between favouring what is good and what is good for someone appears insurmountable. Cover 1 The Value Gap 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Preface 8 Contents 18 Acknowledgements 22 Part I: Elements 24 1: Value Taxonomy 26 1.1 Different Taxonomies 26 1.2 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Values 29 1.3 Final and Non-Final Values 31 1.4 Varieties of Non-Final (Extrinsic) Value 40 1.5 The Coherence of IE 43 2: Good and Good-For 47 2.1 Kinds of Positive Value 47 2.2 Less Interesting Senses of Good-For 50 2.3 Mooreans and Good-For Monists 55 2.4 Value Dualism 58 3: Challenging Mooreanism 60 3.1 Introducing a Debate 60 3.2 Overall and Pro Tanto Value 61 3.3 The Argument against Mooreanism 62 3.4 The Totality of Value 66 3.5 The Intuition of Neutrality and Value Monism 67 3.6 Relationalists and the Intuition of Neutrality 69 3.7 Non-Relationalists and the Intuition of Neutrality 69 4: Challenging Good-For Monism 73 4.1 Relationalist Strategies 73 4.2 Relationalism and Aggregation 75 4.3 Separating Value from Normativity 80 4.4 Good-For Monism and Thick Value Concepts 82 4.5 Reasons Provided by Relational Value 87 4.6 Relationalism, Supervenience, and Constitution 90 5: Good-For Unitarianism 95 5.1 The Background 95 5.2 Good-For Unitarianism 97 5.3 Disunitarianism 99 5.4 Well-Being 102 5.5 Thin and Thick Values 103 5.6 The Thickor Thinness of Good-For 106 5.7 Good-For and The Intuition of Neutrality 107 Part II: A Fitting-attitude Analysis Of Value 112 6: Fitting-Attitude Analysis 114 6.1 The New Agenda 114 6.2 FA Analysis and its Advantages 118 6.3 Brentano, Kriegel, Rowland, and the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem 123 6.4 FA Analysis and the Moore/Brentano Challenge 128 6.5 A Reason’s Strength 132 6.6 The Real Agency Challenge to FA Analysis 135 6.7 The Value of Actuality 137 7: The Logical Consequence of Fitting Attitudes 142 7.1 The Property of Being an Intrinsic Property 142 7.2 FA Analysis and Value Dualism 143 7.3 The Normative Approach 146 7.4 The Logical Consequence Argument 151 8: The Fitting-Attitude Analysis Revised 154 8.1 The Combinatorial Account 154 8.2 Challenging the Arguments 156 8.3 Downgrading the Logical Consequence Argument 158 8.4 Redefining Final Goodness 160 8.5 A Substantive Argument Against P** 161 9: 'Sake’ 165 9.1 For Pete’s Sake 165 9.2 The Untranslatability Objection 167 9.3 The Functional ‘Sake’ 169 9.4 The Non-Evaluative ‘Sake’ 171 9.5 Vocation and Being Struck by Personal Value 173 9.6 ‘Sake’ in FA Analysis 174 10: FA and Motivating Reasons 176 10.1 Two Issues 176 10.2 Introducing Some Terminology 177 10.3 Favourings and Motivating Reasons 183 11: Favouring for No Reason 189 11.1 Aim 189 11.2 Favourings Not Governed by Reason 189 11.3 Raz and Expressive Acts 193 11.4 Habits and Explanatory Reasons 194 11.5 The Dual-Role Requirement 197 11.6 Reasonm and Reasong 197 11.7 Two Challenging Cases: The Surprise Party and Placebo 198 11.8 Arguments from Intentional Overload, Complexity, and Form 200 12: Mind The Value Gap 204 12.1 On My Own Authority 204 12.2 The Width and the Profundity 206 12.3 Geachian Crossing 207 12.4 The Disapprovables—A Personality Response 208 12.5 Silencing 212 12.6 Incommensurable but Comparable 215 12.7 Two Kinds of Importance 218 12.8 Minding the Gap 220 References 222 Index 234 "In The Value Gap, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen addresses the distinction between what is finally good and what is finally good-for, two value notions that are central to ethics and practical deliberation. The first part of the book argues against views that claim that one of these notions is either faulty, or at best conceptually dependent on the other notion. Whereas these two views disagree on whether it is good or good-for that is the flawed or dependent concept, it is argued, as against both approaches, that goodness and goodness-for are independent value notions that cannot be fully understood in terms of one another. The second part provides an analysis of good and good-for in terms of a fitting-attitude analysis. By elaborating a more nuanced understanding of the key elements of this analysis -- reasons and pro-attitudes -- Rønnow-Rasmussen challenges the widespread idea that there are no genuine practical and moral dilemmas. The result is that the gap between favouring for a reason what is good and favouring for a reason what is good for someone appears insurmountable"-- Provided by publisher Toni Ronnow-Rasmussen explores the distinction between what is finally good and what is finally good-for: he argues that these two value notions are equally important in ethics and practical deliberation. His analysis challenges the widespread idea that there are no genuine practical and moral dilemmas