The Logical Consequence of Fitting Attitudes

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-130
Author(s):  
Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen

Any fitting-attitude (FA) analysis which understands value ultimately in terms of reasons and pro- and con-attitudes will have limited wiggle room if it is to respect the kind of radical division between good and good-for that earlier chapters have outlined. Essentially, its proponents can either introduce two different normative notions, one relating to good and the other to good-for, or distinguish two kinds of attitude, one corresponding to the analysis of good and the other corresponding to the analysis of good-for. ‘The Logical Consequence of Fitting Attitudes’ outlines why the latter, ‘attitudinal’ approach is preferable. Unfortunately, the attitudinal approach faces a challenging problem: the logical consequence argument. According to it, the attitudinal approach has the unwelcome consequence that whatever is good for someone is also, necessarily, non-relationally good. That is bad news—especially if you are a value dualist. The next chapter (Chap. 8) is devoted to resolving this issue.

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-141
Author(s):  
Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen

‘The Fitting-Attitude Analysis Revised’ is devoted to a challenge to the fitting-attitude analysis (FA analysis) that arises from the logical consequence argument (outlined in Chap. 7). This argument shows that the version of FA analysis defended in this work has the unwelcome consequence that whatever is good for someone is also, necessarily, non-relationally good. However, as the discussion evinces, an advocate of FA analysis can meet this challenge. In effect, what is needed is a modification of the standard way of formulating the FA analysis of final impersonal value. Combining this revised FA version of final impersonal value with a novel way of understanding final non-relational value provides a plausible way to handle the logical consequence argument. The chapter also discusses three related issues. (i) It outlines a reductio of the standard version of final goodness; (ii) it explains why combining a normative and an attitudinal approach does not, in the end, serve the needs of the FA advocate. Finally, it (iii) introduces a kind of case in which we would intuitively agree that something is good for person a, but which, intuitively, is such that few or no one would think they had a reason to favour what was considered good for a (except a). Such examples allegedly showcase why the book’s proposed analysis is incorrect. Eventually, it is explained why this kind of case does not have this implication.


1972 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 692-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Ackermann ◽  
H. Lefebvre-Brion ◽  
A. L. Roche

The Rydberg States of the PO molecule, converging to the ground state of the PO+ ion, are calculated using the LCAO–MO SCF orbitals of the molecular ion core. An adjustment between the observed and calculated values for the energy of the first Rydberg A2Σ+ state gives a value of about 66 400 cm−1 for the ionization potential of PO. The agreement between the experimental and calculated values is very good for the other observed Rydberg states. In the 5300–3800 Å region, no more than four 2Σ+ Rydberg states are expected, which supports the "deperturbation" procedure carried out by Verma. A comparison is made between the p, d, and ƒ complexes in PO and NO. The B2Σ+ state appears to be a valence state corresponding to the electron excitation from an antibonding (vπ)* orbital to a weakly antibonding (uσ)* orbital.


Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard

This chapter criticizes the familiar idea that humans are more important than animals. After examining some reasons why we treat humans and animals differently, and showing that they do not imply the superior importance of humans, it argues that the claim of superior human importance is not so much false as (nearly) incoherent. Importance and goodness are “tethered” values: things are only important or good when they are important-to or good-for some creature. To be important or good absolutely is to be important-to or good-for all creatures. One kind of creature could be absolutely more important than others only if the fate of that kind of creature were more important to others than their own fates. Only a teleological picture of the world that made human good the ultimate purpose of the world could support the conclusion that humans are more important than the other animals.


Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard

This book argues that we are obligated to treat all sentient animals as “ends in themselves.” Drawing on a theory of the good derived from Aristotle, it offers an explanation of why animals are the sorts of beings who have a good. Drawing on a revised version of Kant’s argument for the value of humanity, it argues that rationality commits us to claiming the standing of ends in ourselves in two senses. As autonomous beings, we claim to be ends in ourselves when we claim the standing to make laws for ourselves and each other. As beings who have a good, we also claim to be ends in ourselves when we take the things that are good for us to be good absolutely and so worthy of pursuit. The first claim commits us to joining with other autonomous beings in relations of reciprocal moral lawmaking. The second claim commits us to treating the good of every sentient animal as something of absolute importance. The book also argues that human beings are not more important than, superior to, or better off than the other animals. It criticizes the “marginal cases” argument and advances a view of moral standing as attaching to the atemporal subjects of lives. It offers a non-utilitarian account of the relationship between the good and pleasure, and addresses questions about the badness of extinction and about whether we have the right to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us, and keep them as pets.


2014 ◽  
Vol 881-883 ◽  
pp. 757-760
Author(s):  
Xiao Qing Ren ◽  
Li Zhen Ma ◽  
Xin Yi He

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of different levels of catfish bone paste to flour on the physicochemical, textural and crumb structure properties of steamed bread. Six different levels (0, 1, 3, 5, 7,10 %) of catfish bone paste to flour were used in the formulation of the steamed bread. The results showed that the weight loss and TTA of steamed bread decreased with an increase in the levels of the catfish bone paste. On the other hand, the pH increased with an increase in the levels of the catfish bone paste. The specific volume, hardness, chewiness and gas cell structure in the crumb of steamed bread with catfish bone paste at 5% supplementation level were better. Thus, a value of 5% catfish bone paste was considered a better level for incorporation into the steamed bread.


Author(s):  
Hezhen Hu ◽  
Wengang Zhou ◽  
Junfu Pu ◽  
Houqiang Li

Sign language recognition (SLR) is a challenging problem, involving complex manual features (i.e., hand gestures) and fine-grained non-manual features (NMFs) (i.e., facial expression, mouth shapes, etc .). Although manual features are dominant, non-manual features also play an important role in the expression of a sign word. Specifically, many sign words convey different meanings due to non-manual features, even though they share the same hand gestures. This ambiguity introduces great challenges in the recognition of sign words. To tackle the above issue, we propose a simple yet effective architecture called Global-Local Enhancement Network (GLE-Net), including two mutually promoted streams toward different crucial aspects of SLR. Of the two streams, one captures the global contextual relationship, while the other stream captures the discriminative fine-grained cues. Moreover, due to the lack of datasets explicitly focusing on this kind of feature, we introduce the first non-manual-feature-aware isolated Chinese sign language dataset (NMFs-CSL) with a total vocabulary size of 1,067 sign words in daily life. Extensive experiments on NMFs-CSL and SLR500 datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.


2020 ◽  
Vol 192 (47) ◽  
pp. E1548-E1549
Author(s):  
Roxana Chis

1968 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 393-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Hunter

Schools of six jack mackerel each were photographed with infrared film at eight levels of luminance and also in darkness. Three indices were used to measure the behavior of the school from motion pictures. Two of the indices, mean distance to nearest neighbor and mean separation distance, were measures of the distances between individuals in a school; the other, mean angular deviation, was a measure of differences in orientation between individuals. A value for each index was calculated for each motion picture frame.From 12.1 to 6 × 10−6 ft-L no differences existed in the angular deviation of the school or in the distances between fish. At 6 × 10−7 ft-L the intervals between fish were much larger than at higher levels of brightness and groups showed little uniformity in their orientation. Below 6 × 10−7 ft-L (darkness) schools were dispersed and the distributions of values of angular deviation were random.The ability of jack mackerel to feed on live adult Artemia was also tested at eight levels of luminance and in darkness. The number of Artemia eaten at 6 × 10−5 ft-L was about half of that eaten at the normal daytime level of 12.1 ft-L. Few Artemia were eaten at 6 × 10−7 ft-L and none in darkness.Comparison of these data with measurements of light in the sea indicated that jack mackerel probably would be able to maintain schools near the surface on a moonless starlit night and that they probably could feed effectively near the surface on a full moonlight night.


Author(s):  
Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen

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.


1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Frank I. Michelman

Prescriptive political and moral theories contain ideas about what human beings are like and about what, correspondingly, is good for them. Conceptions of human “nature” and corresponding human good enter into normative argument by way of support and justification. Of course, it is logically open for the ratiocinative traffic to run the other way. Strongly held convictions about the rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, of certain social institutions or practices may help condition and shape one's responses to one or another set of propositions about what people are like and what, in consequence, they have reason to value.


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