While investigating the value of achievements, Dunkle claims that lucky achievements are possible. For instance, if a person does great works, then it is possible that the works have the status of achievements, even if luck plays a crucial role in doing the great works. Rather than examining Dunkle’s claim, this paper proceeds discussion under the assumption that lucky achievements are possible. In particular, based on this assumption, this paper suggests a new approach to the nature of achievement named the (...) Comparative Value Approach. According to the comparative value approach, a product can have the status of an achievement if the product is valuable in an achievement-relevant domain, and in that domain the product is valuable more than most other items which either have been achieved or can be achieved by others. This paper shows that the comparative value approach successfully explains the cases of achievements, including the cases of lucky achievements. Besides this reason, this paper provides three more reasons to show that the comparative value approach is a feasible view of achievements. The comparative value approach can accommodate the fact that there are various kinds of achievements; the approach can explain the relation between the nature of achievement and the achievement-value of a product; and the approach can show why in determining the status of a product it matters that for average people achieving a similar kind of product is sufficiently difficult. Based on these four reasons, this paper concludes that the comparative value approach is a plausible understanding of achievements. (shrink)

Why do we so often care about the outcomes of games when nothing is at stake? There is a paradox here, much like the paradox of fiction, which concerns why we care about the fates and threats of merely fictional beings. I argue that the paradox threatens to overturn a great deal of what philosophers have thought about caring, severing its connection to value and undermining its moral weight. I defend a solution to the paradox that draws on Kendall Walton's (...) solution to the paradox of fiction, developing his idea that it be extended to games. The solution takes games to involve make‐believe: in particular, players and spectators make‐believe that the outcome of the game matters. I also explore how the phenomenon extends beyond games. And I explore some moral implications: in particular, my view preserves the idea that we have reason not to impede others in their pursuit of what they care about. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the impact of disability on one of life’s goods: achievement. Contra Campbell, Nyholm, and Walter, I argue that construing the magnitude of achievements in terms of subjective effort trivializes what it means to achieve. This poses a problem for the authors’ argument that disability, in general, does not reduce access to this good. I draw on an alternative construal of achievement that I have proposed elsewhere in order to show that, indeed, many disabilities do not (...) restrict access to achievement. I defend this argument against an objection that it problematically relativizes the achievements of persons with disability, and I close with general lessons for future work. (shrink)

A common intuition is that the more difficult it is for someone to do the right thing, the more praiseworthy she is for succeeding and the less blameworthy she is for failing. Here, I call this the ‘Difficulty Thesis’ and argue that the Difficulty Thesis is false. In Section 2, I briefly describe what I mean by ‘difficulty’ and the Difficulty Thesis. The Difficulty Thesis has strong prima facie appeal, however, why exactly difficulty is morally relevant remains an open and (...) interesting philosophical question. I discuss this briefly in Section 3. Then, in Section 4, I argue that the Difficulty Thesis is in fact false. That is, difficulty is not relevant to degrees of praise- and blameworthiness. In Section 5, I offer several explanations for why many are fooled by the illusion of relevance of Difficulty. I argue that difficulty is, at best, an imperfect heuristic with regard to evaluations of praise- and blameworthiness. I also argue that while difficulty is not relevant to praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, difficulty is relevant to practices of praise and blame. I conclude, then, that the Difficulty Thesis ought to be rejected. (shrink)

John Danaher and Sven Nyholm have argued that automation, especially of the sort powered by artificial intelligence, poses a threat to meaningful work by diminishing the chances for meaning-conferring workplace achievement, what they call “achievement gaps”. In this paper, I argue that Danaher and Nyholm’s achievement gap thesis suffers from an ambiguity. The weak version of the thesis holds that automation may result in the appearance of achievement gaps, whereas the strong version holds that automation may result on balance loss (...) in possibilities for workplace achievements, i.e., in the appearance of an overall gappier work landscape. Against the strong version of the achievement gap thesis, I characterize situations where automation may result in boons to meaning-conferring workplace achievements: the appearance of what I call achievement spread and achievement swaps. Nevertheless, Danaher and Nyholm are right to worry about some uses of automation whereby human workers become subservient to AI. But these situations are better framed, I argue, as autonomy gaps rather than achievement gaps. (shrink)

Why does it seem better to be a pauper who becomes a king rather than a king who becomes a pauper even when each life contains an equivalent sum of goods to the other? Many argue that only the pauper-to-king life can be told as a redemption story and that it is good for you to live a redemption story. This paper calls that explanation into question and proposes an alternative: upward-trending lives reveal growth. I argue that growth is a (...) valuable feature of a life, that redemption is not, and that growth explains intuitions cited in favor of redemption. (shrink)

The articles in this issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy explore emerging technologies, medical innovations, and shifting moral norms, expanding present discussions around topics in bioethics both old and new. Some question whether novel definitions of death and harm change the moral permissibility of killing, particularly at the hands of a physician. Others question how increased or decreased abilities affect responsibility and achievement. Another illustrates how rhetorical appeals to character have been used to justify otherwise morally illicit actions (...) within the clinic. Together, these articles shed new light on topics in the field of bioethics. (shrink)