The Fitting-Attitude Analysis Revised

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.

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.


2020 ◽  
pp. 112-132
Author(s):  
L. Nandi Theunissen

The chapter addresses classic Moorean challenges to relational value with a focus on worries about normativity. The author rejects the suggestion that personal value—whatever is good for one person but not for another—generates reasons that are only agent-relative—reasons for the beneficiary but not for others. She shows why, as she understands the components of a theory of value, being such as to benefit a person explains why something is of value, and for that reason such as to give reasons that are reasons for all human beings. The argument makes clear why people, who are relationally valuable in a sense she has explained, make ethical demands on one another


Analysis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-433
Author(s):  
Johan E Gustafsson

Abstract Daniel C. Dennett has long maintained that the Consequence Argument for incompatibilism is confused. In a joint work with Christopher Taylor, he claims to have shown that the argument is based on a failure to understand Logic 101. Given a fairly plausible account of having the power to cause something, they claim that the argument relies on an invalid inference rule. In this paper, I show that Dennett and Taylor’s refutation does not work against a better, more standard version of the Consequence Argument. Therefore, Dennett and Taylor’s alleged refutation fails.


2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 314-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connie S. Rosati

In his critique of egoism as a doctrine of ends, G. E. Moore famously challenges the idea that something can be “good for” someone. Donald Regan has recently revived and developed the Moorean challenge, making explicit its implications for the very idea of individual welfare. If the Moorean is right, there is no distinct, normative property good for, and so no plausible objectivism about ethics could be welfarist. In this essay, I undertake to address the Moorean challenge, clarifying our theoretical alternatives so that we may better decide what to admit into our moral ontology and better assess what may be at stake in whether objectivists treat good or good for (or neither) as fundamental. I compare the Moorean and welfarist pictures of value, providing an account of the form and function of good for. According to this account “good for” expresses a distinct relational value that has its source in the value of persons. Good for value is thus a form of extrinsic value that provides agent-neutral reasons for action, and it plays a pervasive normative role in regulating child rearing, guiding individual life choices, and shaping social policy formation.


Philosophy ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz-Anton Fritzson

AbstractThis paper discusses how we are to understand claims to the effect that something is good relative to a person. It is argued that goodness relative to should not be equated with good for as the latter is a relational value notion and the former is a value theoretical notion. It is argued further that good relative to a person should be understood as good from the perspective or the point of view of the person. But this analysis of the notion ‘good relative to’ leaves open questions about the full nature of relative goodness. For that, a positive proposal about what it is for something to be good relative to a person's point of view is needed. One such proposal is put forward on which the relevant perspective is determined or fixed in terms of the pro and con attitudes of the individual person.


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 711-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Dreher ◽  
D. Kent Cullers

AbstractWe develop a figure of merit for SETI observations which is anexplicitfunction of the EIRP of the transmitters, which allows us to treat sky surveys and targeted searches on the same footing. For each EIRP, we calculate the product of terms measuring the number of stars within detection range, the range of frequencies searched, and the number of independent observations for each star. For a given set of SETI observations, the result is a graph of merit versus transmitter EIRP. We apply this technique to several completed and ongoing SETI programs. The results provide a quantitative confirmation of the expected qualitative difference between sky surveys and targeted searches: the Project Phoenix targeted search is good for finding transmitters in the 109to 1014W range, while the sky surveys do their best at higher powers. Current generation optical SETI is not yet competitive with microwave SETI.


1981 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-43
Author(s):  
Kandace A. Penner ◽  
Betsy Partin Vinson

It has been our experience in using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test that an inordinate number of verbs are missed by mentally retarded individuals. This study attempts to determine whether verb errors were due to a lack of word comprehension or a failure to understand what was being requested by the morphological-syntactic form of the stimulus. Twenty-eight subjects residing in a state facility for the mentally retarded were given a standard version and a modified version of the PPVT. On the modified version of the test, the stimulus "verbing" was altered to incorporate a syntactic helper, forming the stimulus "somebody verbing." As a result, there was a mean reduction of verb error by almost 50%.


2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (12) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
SHARON WORCESTER
Keyword(s):  

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Michele G. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  

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