Value and Fitting Attitudes
Wlodek Rabinowicz
Objective:
To examine the ’fitting-attitudes’ analysis of value.
- Advantages of this analysis format
- Some of its problems
- Application to the taxonomy of value relations
Rabinowicz & Rönnow-Rasmussen, Ethics 2004,
Phil. Quart. 2006
Rabinowicz, Theoria 2008, Polish J. Phil. 2009
VALUE AND FITTING ATTITUDES
FA-analysis: x is valuable = it is fitting to favour x
‘fitting’, ‘appropriate’, ‘correct’, ‘ought’, ‘required’,
‘reason’, etc. - the deontic component.
”Favour” – a place-holder for a pro-attitude
(or, more generally, a pro-response)
Final vs. instrumental value:
x has final/instrumental value = it’s fitting to favour x for its
own sake/for something else’s sake
Disvalue:
in terms of fitting disfavour (a place holder for a con-attitude)
Two variants of the FA-analysis:
(i) Value monism
The same kind of attitude for all values (say, desire, or
preference)
(ii) Value pluralism
Different pro-attitudes (or different combinations of pro-attitudes)
fit different objects
 Plurality of values:
admirable, desirable, pleasurable, lovely, awesome, …
Often not just one kind of attitude is fitting,
but rather a complex of responses, both attitudinal (conative,
emotional) and behavioral (caring, promoting, protecting)
Pluralism concerning value bearers:
states of affairs, persons, things, etc.
Characteristic features of FA-analysis
- connection to attitudes (the attitudinal component), or more
generally, responses
- normativity (the deontic component)
Value is analysed in terms of attitudes that ought to be held
towards the value bearer.
Advantages of FA-analysis
(i) de-mystifying
The deontic component accounts for the prescriptive force
of value (cf. Mackie!)
(ii) meta-ethically neutral
Compatible both with ethical cognitivism and noncognitivism
The deontic component  non-naturalistic analysis
(at least prima facie, unless the deontic component itself is
given a natuarlistic account)
To compare with dispositional theories about value.
Dispositionalism: x is valuable = we are disposed to favour x
under normal circumstance / under optimal (appropriately
idealized) circumstances.
Note: The optimality version is close to FA-analysis!
Some dispositionalists:
M. Johnston, ”Dispositional Theories of Value”, 1989
M. Smith, The Moral Problem, 1994
Common to both dispositionalism and FA-analysis:
Response dependence
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Franz Brentano:
“We call a thing good when the love relating to it is correct. In the
broadest sense of the term, the good is that which is worthy of
love, that which can be loved with a love that is correct.”
(The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, p.18)
About “better”:
“[…] the better is that which it is correct to love more; it is that in
which one correctly takes more pleasure. But the ‘more’ has
nothing to do with comparative intensity. It refers to the peculiar
phenomenon to be found within the sphere of emotions –
namely, to the phenomenon of preferring. […] When we call one
good ‘better’ than another, we mean that the one good is
preferable to the other. In other words, it is correct to prefer the
one good, for its own sake, to the other.” (p. 26)
A.C. Ewing: “good” = “fitting object of a pro-attitude”
(The Definition of Good, 1947)
Bouwsma on Wittgenstein on Ewing:
”Towards the end of our discussion which had lasted several
hours, W. spoke of A. C. Ewing’s definition – in a Moral Science
[Club] lecture, ’Good is what it is right to admire.’ Then he shook
his head over it. The definition throws no light. There are three
concepts, all of them vague. Imagine three solid pieces of stone.
You pick them up, fit them together and you get now a ball. What
you’ve now got tells you something about the three shapes. Now
consider you have three balls of or lumps of soft mud or putty –
formless. Now you put the three together and mould out of them
a ball. Ewing makes a soft ball out of three pieces of mud.”
Not a very good argument.
It is informative to learn that the “three pieces of mud” need to be
mutually adjusted so as to make up a ball together.
W. D. Ross’ critique of the FA-analysis:
The goodness of an object cannot consist in, say,
its being worthy of admiration since
(i) goodness is what the object should be admired for,
(ii) admiration already involves a judgment that the
object is good.
(Foundations of Ethics, 1939)
Ewing’s response:
- Is goodness really what the object is to be admired for?
No. Admiration is primarily a response to the object’s
”good-making properties”, not to its goodness.
- Consequently, admiration need not involve a
judgment that the object is good.
But what about the deontic component in FA?
Isn’t some circularity lurking there?
Ewing:
”Fitting”, ”appropriate”, etc. should not themselves be
interpreted as evaluative terms,
if circularity in the analysis is to be avoided!
(”x är valuable = it is valuable to favour x”)
Ewing avoids this circle: Value is reduced to Ought.
Pace Moore.
Ewing:
The relevant ought is “the ought of fittingness”, rather
than the moral ought.
Later Ewing (Second Thoughts in Moral Philosophy,
1959) is more cautious:
Moral ought for some meanings of ’good’,
”ought of fittingness” for other meanings.
”Fittingness” interpreted as ”reasonableness”.
Other FA-proponents: Broad, Brandt, Rawls,
Chisholm, Wiggins, Gibbard, Lemos, Nagel,
and, most notably,
Thomas Scanlon (What we Owe to Each Other, 1998)
The Buck-Passing Account
Scanlon:
“[Pace Moore,] being good, or valuable is not a
property that itself provides a reason to respond to a
thing in certain ways. Rather, to be good or valuable is
to have other properties that constitute such reasons.
Since the claim that some property constitutes a
reason is a normative claim, this account also [i.e., like
Moore’s] takes goodness and value to be non-natural
properties, namely the purely formal, higher-order
properties of having some lower-order properties that
provide reasons of the relevant kind. … it is not
goodness or value itself that provides reasons but
rather other properties that do so. For this reason I call
it a buck-passing account.”
Some of the problems with FA-analysis
- Potential circularity
A circle threatens if pro-attitudes essentially involve
evaluative thoughts (Ross),
or if the normative component is at bottom an
evaluative concept.
But cf. Wiggins (1987): Due to its “detour through sentiments”,
FA-analysis can still be instructive even if it is circular. (Wiggins
accepted Rossian circularity.)
- Problem of the common denominator
Given value pluralism, what do different pro-attitudes
have in common?
What makes them pro?
How do they differ from con-attitudes and from
‘neutral’ attitudes towards objects?
- The ’Wrong Kind of Reasons’ Problem
There can be reasons for a pro-attitude towards an
object even if that object lacks value.
Roger Crisp’s example:
”Imagine that an evil demon will inflict a severe pain
on me unless I prefer this saucer of mud; that makes
the saucer well worth preferring. But it would not be
plausible to claim that the saucer’s of mud’s
existence is, in itself, valuable”(2000)
But doesn’t the object has at least an instrumental value in this
case?
Consider this: The demon’s demand might be that we desire
the saucer of mud for its own sake.
FA-analysis would then imply that the saucer has a final value.
A piece of recent history
d’Arms & Jacobson, “Sentiment and Value”, Ethics 2000:
The Conflation Problem
The connection between value and appropriate attitudes is not a
simple equivalence:
(1) There can be reasons for pro-attitudes towards objects that
lack value (‘false positives’)
(2) There can be reasons against pro-attitudes towards objects
that have value (‘false negatives’)
Example of (2): A funny racist joke.
They see it as a danger of conflation: of mistaken ascriptions of
value (1) or mistaken denials of value (2).
But even if the danger of conflation can be avoided,
the analytical problem remains. Especially serious in case (1).
The general structure of the objection:
(i) An object x lacks final value
(ii) Still, there is a reason to favour x for its own sake,
because this pro-attitude itself is valuable,
in virtue of its beneficial effects.
(iii) So, FA-analysis is wrong.
Paradox of hedonism (Joseph Butler):
To desire nothing for its own sake apart from pleasure is selfdefeating.
 Sophisticated hedonism:
We ought to desire other things as well for their own sake
(knowledge, friendship, etc),
even though it is pleasure alone that has final value.
(Similar paradox for the preference satisfaction view.)
In previous examples (saucer of mud, sophisticated hedonism),
the value of the pro-attitude towards a valueless object was
instrumental.
But the objection also applies when the attitude instead has a
final value.
Example:
Mental-state axiology (à la G. E. Moore):
(i) Only mental states are finally valuable.
(ii) Among these, some are pro-attitudes towards
non-mental objects (for example, admiration of
nature or works of art, intellectual enjoyment of
philosophical problems, etc).
The objection also applies when the reason for a proattitude/pro-response is deontological rather than value-related.
Example: Love your neighbours.
A general strategy for a solution:
Show that the reasons in the counter-examples are of the
WRONG KIND from the point of view of FA-analysis.
(Note: Reasons of the wrong kind might still be perfectly good
reasons.)
So, what’s needed is a way to draw a distinction between
reasons of the right kind and reasons of the wrong kind.
This is the WKR Problem.
(Rabinowicz & Rönnow-Rasmussen 2004.)
Solution 1: Attitude-given reasons
In our counter-examples, reasons for pro-attitudes have all
been attitude-given rather than object-given.
(Parfit 2001 contrasts reasons for mental states that are
‘object-given’ with those that are ‘state-given’.)
It’s this that makes them reasons of the wrong kind.
Attitude-given reasons:
Saucer of mud: Desiring the saucer would shield us from the
demon’s punishment.
Sophisticated hedonism: Pro-attitudes towards knowledge,
friendship, etc, are pleasure-conducive.
Mental-state axiology:
Reasons for a pro-attitude towards a non-mental object are
provided by that attitude’s intrinsic features.
So: Are reasons of the right kind iff they are object-given?
When exactly is a reason object-given?
Parfit:
When it is a fact about the object (i.e. a feature of the object).
But: To every reason-providing property of an attitude
corresponds a reason-providing property of its object.
If favouring x has a property P that is a reason for this attitude,
then there is a property of object x that is a reason for this attitude:
namely, x being such that its favouring would have a property P.
But isn’t this a property of the object in a very attenuated sense?
Yes, quite often, but not always.
Example:
The demon threatens to punish us unless we admire him.
The demon’s threat is a robust feature of the demon.
Solution 1’: Attitude-involving reasons
(Olson 2004)
Our examples of object features that are reasons of the wrong
kind have all been properties involving some reference to
attitudes.
(ex: x being such that favouring it shields one from punishment)
So, perhaps. reasons of the right kind should not only be objectgiven. They should also not be attitude-involving.
But: Some reasons of the right kind are attitude-involving.
Examples:
A person can be admirable in part because she doesn’t care
whether or not she is admired.
A person can be lovable in part because she responds with love
to love.
Solution 2: All reasons for attitudes are of the right kind.
(Gibbard 1990, Parfit 2009, Skorupski 2009)
Attitude-given reasons are not reasons for those attitudes;
instead, they are reasons for wanting to have them or for trying to
acquire them. (Reasons for second-order responses.)
But isn’t this implausible?
Analogy: Beneficial effects of an action provide reasons for this
action (and not just for wanting the action or for trying to perform
it). So why should attitudes be different?
Parfit: Genuine reasons for attitudes influence attitudes directly,
without mediation of the will.
[Involuntarism]
Analogy with epistemic reasons.
But this only moves the problem up one step: How to distinguish
between reasons for 1-order and reasons for 2-order attitudes?
Solution 3: Right reasons are considerations
that bear on the relevant question
(Pamela Hieronymi, J. Phil 2005)
This works well for the epistemic case.
Right reasons for a belief that p are considerations that bear
on the question: Is p true?
But what is the relevant question with respect to favouring x?
The natural answer seems to be:
Is x worthy of favour?
I.e., is x valuable?
 This solution is of no use when the analysis of the concept
of value is at issue.
Solution 3: The dual role of the right kind of reasons
(Rabinowicz & Rönnow-Rasmussen 2004)
Reasons of the right kind play a dual role:
(i) They justify a pro-attitude, i.e., provide reasons for it,
and
(ii) they feature in the intentional content of that pro-attitude – as
the properties on account of which the object is favoured.
Example:
S is admirable in virtue of her courage.
S’s courage justifies admiration for S,
and is a feature on account of which she should be admired:
We should admire her for being courageous.
Contrast this with the evil demon case:
Unless we favour x (a saucer of mud) for its own sake, the evil
demon will punish us.
The relevant feature of x, that we will be punished if we don’t
favour it for its own sake, has only one role:
It justifies favouring x for its own sake.
But it is not a feature on account of which we can favour x for its
own sake.
Sophisticated hedonism:
That loving knowledge for its own sake is pleasure-conducive
justifies love of knowledge, but it is not a feature for which we can
love knowledge for its own sake.
Mental-state axiology:
The intrinsic features of our pro-attitude towards a non-mental
object x that provide reasons for that attitude, do not appear in its
intentional content as the features for which we favour x.
The Demon Strikes Back
(Folke Tersman’s objection)
The demon now is determined to punish us unless we admire
him, for his own sake, precisely for his determination to punish
us unless we admire him in that way.
The dual-role requirement is satisfied:
The demon’s determination to punish us unless …
justifies our admiration
and
it is the feature on account of which he is to be admired.
But the reason that feature provides still is of the wrong kind.
It doesn’t makes the demon better.
Solution 5: A sui generis deontic concept
Back to Ewing’s concept of fittingness,
but now interpreted as a deontic concept sui generis,
distinct from the ordinary ’ought’.
It is unfitting to admire the demon, even though he ought to be
admired, given the circumstances.
Problem: A circularity threatens.
That a pro-attitude is fitting maybe just means that this attitude
is adequate to the object’s value?
(Similar problem with the proposal by Danielsson & Olson, in
Mind 2007, which relies on Brentano’s notion of correctness.)