This paper presents a puzzle for Act Consequentialists who do not want to shoot Pelé. The puzzle arises from cases involving the promotion of virtue, and motivates a systematic restriction on the separability of reasons.

This article critically examines the several definitions of, or elements of a single definition of, Robert S. Hartman's understanding of “intrinsic values,” “intrinsic evaluations,” “extrinsic values,” and “extrinsic valuations”. [I have since changed my mind about what is said in the last few sentences. I now think, with Hartman, that only unique, non-repeatable, conscious individuals have intrinsic worth. Repeatable qualities like pleasure and knowledge are “good for us” properties, but not “good in, to, and for themselves” or “for (...) their own sakes” properties.]. (shrink)

To what extent are factors that are extrinsic to the artwork relevant to judgments of artistic value? One might approach this question using traditional philosophical methods, but one can also approach it using empirical methods; that is, by doing experimental philosophical aesthetics. This paper provides an example of the latter approach. We report two empirical studies that examine the significance of three sorts of extrinsic factors for judgments of artistic value: the causal-historical factor of contagion, the (...) ontological factor of uniqueness, and the contextual factor of appreciative environment. We explore the context of appreciation by performing studies in a museum as well as the lab. We found that contagion made a difference to judgments of artistic value in both settings. These results are congruent with previous empirical research as well as recent philosophical work that defends the artistic significance of authenticity. However, uniqueness only made a difference in the lab setting, but not in the museum. This suggests that the context of appreciation may make a difference to judgments of artistic value. Of broader significance, these studies show the value of experimental philosophical aesthetics and the value of doing in situ empirical research on art. (shrink)

‘Relational value’ (RV) has intuitive credibility due to the shortcomings of existing axiological categories regarding recognizing the ethical relevance of people’s relations to nature. But RV is justified by arguments and analogies that do not hold up to closer scrutiny, which strengthens the assumption that RV is redundant. While RV may provide reasons for ethically considering some relations, much work remains to show that RV is a concept that does something existing axiological concepts cannot, beyond empirically describing relations people (...) have to environmental areas and places. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen’s value conservatism entails that we ought to preserve some existing sources of value in lieu of more valuable replacements, thereby repudiating maximizing consequentialism. Cohen motivates value conservatism through illustrative cases. The consequentialist, however, can explain many Cohen-style cases by taking extrinsic properties, such as historical significance, to be sources of final value. Nevertheless, it may be intuitive that there’s stronger reason to preserve than to promote certain sources of value, especially historically significant (...) things. This motivates an argument that the weights of our reasons to preserve such things are especially strong relative to the amounts of value they bear. The value conservative can then explain these intuitions in non-consequentialist terms. There may be reason to preserve historically significant things as a matter of recognition respect for a cultural and historical heritage, or because it is virtuous to cultivate the right kind of connection with such a heritage. (shrink)

Recent critics (Andrew Light, Bryan Norton, Anthony Weston, and Bruce Morito, among others) have argued that we should give up talk of intrinsic value in general and that of nature in particular. While earlier theorists might have overestimated the importance of intrinsic value, these recent critics underestimate its importance. Claims about a thing’s intrinsic value are claims about the distinctive way in which we have reason to care about that thing. If we understand intrinsic value in (...) this manner, we can capture the core claims that environmentalists want to make about nature while avoiding the worries raised by contemporary critics. Since the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value plays a critical role in our understanding of the different ways that we do and should care about things, moral psychology, ethical theory in general, and environmental ethics in particular shouldn’t give up on the concept of intrinsic value. (shrink)

How does valuing something for its own sake differ from valuing an entity for the sake of other things? Although numerous answers come to mind, many of them rule out substantive views about what is valuable for its own sake. I therefore seek to provide a more neutral way to distinguish the two valuing attitudes. Drawing from existing accounts of valuing, I argue that the two can be distinguished in terms of a conative-volitional feature. Focusing first on “non-final valuing”—i.e. valuing_ (...) x_ for the sake of something else—I argue that it involves adopting certain reasons on account of a desire for _x_ to contribute to other things. I then show how this contrasts final valuing. The result, I argue, is a plausible account of how the two modes of valuing differ that leaves open substantive views about what all can be valued for its own sake. This is helpful because it develops a popular methodology used to explore the value of a wide range of things, including natural entities, family heirlooms, and artworks, as well as, more broadly, entities that might have “extrinsic final value.”. (shrink)

A central question of environmental ethics remains one of how best to account for the intuitions generated by the Last Man scenarios; that is, it is a question of how to explain our experience of value in nature and, more importantly, whether that experience is justified. Seeking an alternative to extrinsic views, according to which nonhuman entities possess normative features that obligate us, I turn to constitutive views, which make value or whatever other limits nonhuman nature places (...) on action dependent on features intrinsic to human beings and constitutive of them or their obligations. After examining two kinds of constitutive views—environmental virtue ethics and Korsgaard’s Kantianism—I suggest an alternative that takes up the strengths of both while avoiding their shortcomings. On this view, we have an indirect obligation to experience nature as obligating us, although we have direct obligations only to human beings. (shrink)

The essentially comparative conception of value entails that the value of a state of affairs does not depend solely upon features intrinsic to the state of affairs, but also upon extrinsic features, such as the set of feasible alternatives. It has been argued that this conception of value gives us reason to abandon the transitivity of the better than relation. This paper shows that the support for intransitivity derived from this conception of value is very (...) limited. On its most plausible interpretations, it merely provides a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for intransitivity. It is further argued that the essentially comparative conception of value appears to support a disjunctive conclusion: there is incommensurability of value or betterness is not transitive. Of these two alternatives, incommensurability is preferable, because it is far less threatening to our other axiological commitments. (shrink)

This essay begins with a consideration of one way in which animals and persons may be valued as “irreplaceable.” Drawing on both Plato and Pascal, I consider reasons for skepticism regarding the legitimacy of this sort of attachment. While I do not offer a complete defense against such skepticism, I do show that worries here may be overblown due to the conflation of distinct metaphysical and normative concerns. I then go on to clarify what sort of value is at (...) issue in cases of irreplaceable attachment. I characterize “unique value” as the kind of value attributed to a thing when we take that thing to be (theoretically, not just practically) irreplaceable. I then consider the relationship between this sort of value and intrinsic value. After considering the positions of Gowans, Moore, Korsgaard, Frankfurt, and others, I conclude that unique value is best understood not as a variety of intrinsic value but rather as one kind of final value that is grounded in the extrinsic properties of the object. (shrink)

This book explores three easily recognized personality types of great spiritual significance--worldliness, ideology, and saintliness. These spiritual types are defined by the dominant values they manifest--extrinsic, systemic, or intrinsic. The thoughts, experiences, actions, feelings, and overall characters and behaviors of people belonging to these types are shaped and expressed by what and how they value, as the chapters in the book explain. A distinctive mode of spirituality is correlated with each type, based on what and how religious people (...) most value. What and how people value are the keys to everyone's personalities, whether spiritual or not. Real people do not fall neatly or completely into any one of these types, but in most people some dimension of value is dominant over the others, and this has great spiritual, moral, and practical significance. (shrink)

This paper examines the debate as to whether something can have final value in virtue of its relational (i.e., non-intrinsic) properties, or, more briefly put, whether final value must be intrinsic. The paper adopts the perspective of the fitting-attitude analysis (FA analysis) of value, and argues that from this perspective, there is no ground for the requirement that things may have final value only in virtue of their intrinsic properties, but that there might be some grounds (...) for the alternate requirement that final value be grounded only in the essential properties of their bearers. First, the paper introduces the key elements of the FA analysis, and sets aside an obvious but unimportant way in which this analysis makes all final values relational. Second, it discusses some classical counterexamples to the view that final value must be intrinsic. Third, it discusses the relation between final, contributive, and signatory value. Fourth, it examines Zimmerman’s defense of the requirement that final value must be intrinsic on the grounds that final value cannot be derivative. And finally, it explores the alternative requirement that something may have final value in virtue of its essential properties. (shrink)

It’s now commonplace — since Korsgaard (1996) — in ethical theory to distinguish between two distinctions: on the one hand, the distinction between value an object has in virtue of its intrinsic properties vs. the value it has in virtue of all its properties, intrinsic or extrinsic; and on the other hand, the distinction between the value has an object as an end, vs. the value it has as a means to something else. I’ll call (...) the former distinction the distinction between intrinsic and nonintrinsic value; the latter is between value as-an-end and instrumental value. (shrink)

Advocates of interactionism in the ethical criticism of art argue that ethical value impacts aesthetic value. The debate is concerned with “the intrinsic question”: the question of whether ethical flaws/merits in artworks’ manifested attitudes affect their aesthetic value (Gaut 2007: 9). This paper argues that the assumption that artworks have intrinsic ethical value is problematic at least in regards to a significant subset of works: fictional artworks. I argue that, insofar as their ethical value emerges (...) only from attitudes attributable to actual agents, fictional artworks only have extrinsic ethical value. I show that what is at stake for interactionism is whether ethical judgements concerning artists’ attitudes in a context, rather than manifested attitudes, are ever aesthetically relevant. I conclude that, without buying into extreme actual intentionalism, a still controversial theory of interpretation that ties artworks’ meaning to actual artists, interactionism fails to show that ethical flaws/merits are aesthetic flaws/merits. (shrink)

The orientation of this paper is that there is no special science of "business ethics" any more than there is one of "medical ethics" or "legal ethics". While there may be issues that arise in medicine or law that require special treatment, the ways of relating to such issues are derived from a basic ethical stance. Once one has evolved such an ethical stance and thus has incorporated a fundamental mode of relating to her or his fellow human beings, the (...) "how" to deal with various ethical "issues" will follow as a natural consequence of one's ethical stance or modality. It is not necessary, in the formation of one's fundamental ethical stance to know if one is a utilitarian or a deontologist. It is doubtful whether Buddha knew what kind of ethics he was practising. If one conceives of ethics as something extrinsic to various disciplines and attempts to first practise a discipline and then to apply ethics to modify the results of that discipline it is entirely possible that conflicts will result between what is perceived of as the proper pursuit of that discipline and the ethical considerations. The argument of this paper is that it is more efficacious (in addition to being more true) to take ethical considerations into account in the construction of the definition of the discipline. This paper is devoted to showing that business and ethics are not two different and competing fields of interest (thus requiring a discipline of business ethics to be grafted onto the study of business enterprise), but that ethical concerns are part and parcel of the very concept of a business enterprise and the internal operation of a business organization. (shrink)

Are finally valuable states of affairs intrinsically good (good in themselves) or extrinsically good (good for us)? G.E. Moore argues that finally valuable states of affairs are intrinsically good. I do not believe that this is the case. Against Moore, I argue that finally valuable states of affairs are good for us on the grounds that states of affairs involving human beings have a function, namely, to ‘place’ human beings into certain relations with the spatiotemporal world, and that the good (...) state of affairs is that which places the involved individual into certain relations with the spatiotemporal world in a good way, in a way that is beneficial to the individual. Therefore, finally valuable states of affairs are beneficially good, good for us, rather than good in themselves. (shrink)

The paper argues that Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen’s fitting-attitude analysis of ‘good’ and ‘good for’ allows us to interpret and justify Kant’s Formula of Humanity (FH) in a constructive way. His classification of ‘good’ as a non-relational intrinsic final value and ‘good for’ as a relational extrinsic final value sheds light on two main features of FH, namely that it requires us to display a specific attitude to human beings, while also obligating us to recognize this value in (...) the relational dimension. Based on a reflection of what attitudes toward persons are fitting, we might well come to endorse that persons are “ends in themselves” and merit respect and recognition. I then argue (by way of an ethical reading of Kant’s demand to leave the state of nature and move to a rightful civil condition) that we have, in addition to a fitting attitude, deontic normative reasons (not mere pro tanto reasons) for making this very attitude toward persons the principal standard for our relations to others and to ourselves. (shrink)

Work on the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is often motivated by its use in other areas, such as intrinsic value, real vs. Cambridge change, supervenience and other topics. With the exception of Figdor 2008, philosophers have sought to articulate a global distinction -- a distinction between kinds of properties, rather than ways in which individuals have properties. I argue that global I/E distinctions are unable to do the work that allegedly motivates them, focusing on the case of intrinsic value.

In the Republic, Socrates argues that morality (justice) is valuable both for itself and for what comes from it. In contemporary moral theory, this view is not widely accepted. However, contemporary empirical research in psychology reveals that what we experience is also what we come to expect. It follows from this that if we act in an immoral fashion, we will expect the same from others. The more often we act immorally, the more suspicion will be ingrained within us. Suspicion (...) quickly pervades our minds, corrodes our relationships, and increases our levels of stress, thereby dramatically decreasing our quality of life. Moral action, on the other hand, has the ability to strengthen our faith in others and create strong human relationships. Therefore,morality should be classified as having the highest type of value, just as Socrates contends.Moral behavior allows for healthy relations between persons (intrinsic value) and the wellbeing of the individual (extrinsic value). (shrink)

What is the relationship between negative experience, artistic production, and prudential value? If it were true that (for some people) artistic creativity must be purchased at the price of negative experience (to be clear: currently no one knows whether this is true), what should we conclude about the value of such experiences? Are they worth it for the sake of art? The first part of this essay considers general questions about how to establish the positive extrinsic (...) class='Hi'>value of something intrinsically negative. The second part emphasizes the importance of various distinctions within the realm of the negative. We must distinguish between adversity (which is non-mental) and negative mental states, and between negative thoughts (or attitudes) and negative affect. Within the realm of negative affect, we must distinguish between negative emotions and moods, on the one hand, and negative affective perspectives on the other, and then between mildly negative affective perspectives and severely negative ones (for which I reserve the term ‘suffering’). These distinctions matter greatly, since different types of negative experience have very different degrees of prudential disvalue. Although many types of negative experience may be “worth it”—because their positive extrinsic value outweighs their negative value—this is rarely true of severe suffering. (shrink)

Certain relationships generate associative duties that exhibit robustness across change. It seems insufficient for friendship, for example, if I am only disposed to fulfil duties of friendship towards you as things stand here and now. However, robustness is not required across all variations. Were you to become monstrously cruel towards me, we might expect that my duties of friendship towards you would not be robust across that kind of change. The question then is this: is there any principled way of (...) distinguishing those variations across which robustness of the disposition to fulfil duties of friendship is required from those across which it is not? In this paper I propose a way of answering this question that invokes distinctions concerning how we value friends and friendships, and how persons and friendships possess value – distinctions that are central to the project of specifying not only the limits of robustness, but also the source of duties of friendship and associative duties more generally. (shrink)

Conditionalists say that the value something has as an end—its final value—may be conditional on its extrinsic features. They support this claim by appealing to examples: Kagan points to Abraham Lincoln’s pen, Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen to Lady Diana’s dress, and Korsgaard to a mink coat. They contend that these things may have final value in virtue of their historical or societal roles. These three examples have become familiar: many now merely mention them to establish the conditionalist (...) position. But the widespread faith in such cases is, I believe, unjustified. This is because, surprisingly, the pen, the dress, and the coat cannot have final value. I argue that the problem is internal: these cases are ruled out by every conditionalist account of final value. Further, the problem with these well-known cases applies to most other supposed examples of extrinsic, final goods. Thus nearly all cases given to support the conditionalist view cannot succeed. I suggest a kind of diagnosis: I claim that these examples are best seen as instances of sentimental value, rather than final value. I close by providing a brief account of sentimental value and explain how it relates to instrumental, intrinsic, and final goodness. (shrink)

This article introduces Formal Axiology, first developed by Robert S. Hartman, and explains its essential features—a formal definition of “good” (the “Form of the Good”), three basic kinds of value and evaluation—systemic, extrinsic, and intrinsic, and the hierarchy of value according to which good things having the richest quantity and quality of good-making properties are better than those having less. Formal Axiology is extended into moral philosophy by applying the Form of the Good to persons and showing (...) how this culminates in an Axiological Virtue Ethics. This involves the systemic, extrinsic, and intrinsic goodness of persons, the intrinsic-good-making properties of persons, and the moral virtues that respect the intrinsic worth of persons in thoughts, feelings, and actions. A few obstacles to being and becoming morally good persons are also identified and explained. (shrink)

Erik Wielenberg [2014] and Mark Murphy [2017], [2018] have defended a series of arguments for the conclusion that creatures are not good intrinsically. In response, I take two steps. First, I introduce a conception of intrinsic value that makes created intrinsic value unproblematic. Second, I respond to their arguments in turn. The first argument is from the sovereignty-aseity intuition and an analysis of intrinsicality that makes derivative good extrinsic. I challenge the analysis. The second comes from a (...) conception of perfection where God exhausts all possibilities for goodness. I challenge this conception. The third comes from the contingency of creation and the internal logic of intrinsic value. I challenge the assumption that connects the two. I then present an argument from reference magnetism that the only conception of God, God's perfections, and religious language that makes it plausible that the sentence "God is intrinsically good and creatures are not" is true involves a strongly univocalist position. A view that is either unstatable or places strong demands on our conception of God, God's perfections and religious language thereby loses plausibility. (shrink)

The most valuable player (MVP) of an athletic league is the single best individual player in the league. The MVP award is the institutional recognition of this person, and it is the highest annual award that a player can receive. Despite its widespread consideration and importance, we argue that the concept of the MVP is a fundamentally vague concept. In the context of professional sports, however, such a vague category is valuable in that it promotes the active discussion of different (...) types of excellence found within a specific sport and the weight to be assigned these types, thus leading to a gain for the discussants. (shrink)

The ‘black box’ in Stoic axiology refers to the mysterious connection between the input of Stoic deliberation (reasons generated by the value of indifferents) and the output (appropriate actions). In this paper, I peer into the black box by drawing an analogy between Stoic and Kantian axiology. The value and disvalue of indifferents is intrinsic, but conditional. An extrinsic condition on the value of a token indifferent is that one's selection of that indifferent is sanctioned by (...) context-relative ethical principles. The value of an indifferent that does not meet this condition is normatively silenced, such that it fails to constitute a reason for action. (shrink)

This article explores a form of ethics and spirituality based on the nearly universal but often undeveloped human capacity for identifying self with others and with non-personal values. It begins with commonplace non-moral identification experiences, then describes identification with others in ethical and spiritual unions. Freud’s psychological emphasis on identification is linked with ethics and spirituality, though Freud would have objected. Robert S. Hartman’s three kinds of goodness—systemic, extrinsic, and intrinsic—are applied to abundant ethical and spiritual living through identification. (...) Intrinsic identification with intrinsic values is the highest moral ideal; intrinsic identification with ultimate reality and with goodness in all its forms is the highest spiritual ideal. (shrink)

Poverty in many societies is racialized, with poverty concentrated among particular racial groups. This article aims (a) to provide a philosophical account of how racialized poverty can represent an unjust form of inequality, and (b) to suggest the general direction that policies aiming to reduce racialized poverty ought to take in light of this account. (a) As a species of inequality, racialized poverty (whether absolute or relative) is not intrinsically morally objectionable. However, it can be extrinsically objectionable because it is (...) caused by past or current racial injustice, undermines the value of specific goods to the impoverished, or contributes to objectionable deficiencies in impoverished groups’ political efficacy. (b) Racialized poverty is strongly intergenerational, tending to replicate itself between generations within racial groups. This suggests that approaches to its alleviation that offer income security to all members of those groups, rather than targeted opportunity to subsets of such groups, are both more just and more effective. In particular, societies with racialized poverty should strongly consider policies such as income guarantees, which act to counteract the income volatility that contribute to intergenerational racial poverty. (shrink)

Aims: This paper assessed the motivation and perception of Grade 12 public school students in learning social science during the pandemic. It also investigated the difference in their motivation and perception. -/- Study Design: Descriptive-comparative design. -/- Place and Duration of Study: School Division of a Component City in Northern Negros Occidental, between January 2021 to July 2022. -/- Methodology: The study utilized the descriptive-comparative design. The study was assessed by 436 stratified randomly sampled students. The assessments were gathered using (...) the modified motivation and perception questionnaires. In analyzing the data, mean, standard deviation, Mann Whitney, and Kruskal Wallis were employed. -/- Results: Generally, the motivation (M=3.83, SD= 0.67) shows an agreeable result. The extrinsic goal orientation (M=4.15, SD= 0.88) is rated highest with an agreeable result, and social engagement (M=3.46, SD= 0.92) is the lowest with a neutral result. Meanwhile, they have agreeable perceptions (M=3.69, SD= 0.65) with perceived value (M=3.79, SD= 0.79) as highest and perceived teachers' attitude (M=3.46, SD= 0.89) as lowest. Moreover, there was no difference in their motivation when group according to sex [U=21954.5, p=0.721] and track [U=22104.0, p=0.875]. While a significant difference in academic performance [χ2(4)=53.069, p=0.000]. In terms of perception, it found no difference when grouped according to sex [U=22309.0, p=0.771] and track [U=22163.0, p=0.912]. While a significant difference in academic performance [χ2(4)=32.042, p=0.000]. -/- Conclusion: The study implies the need to address students' motivation and perception issues to ensure their quality learning of social science. (shrink)

This paper challenges a widespread, if tacit, assumption of animal ethics, namely, that the only properties of entities that matter to their moral status are intrinsic, cross‐specific properties—typically psychological capacities. According to moral individualism (Rachels 1990; McMahan 2002; 2005), the moral status of an individual, and how to treat him or her, should only be a function of his or her individual properties. I focus on the fundamental assumption of moral individualism, which I call intrinsicalism. On the challenged view, pigs, (...) puppies and babies, insofar as they are intrinsically similar in morally relevant respects are equally deserving of having their interests satisfied (Norcross 2004). Moreover, relationships—merely agent-relative—are assumed to be irrelevant to moral status. I argue that, while some intrinsic properties are indeed fundamentally relevant, the principled exclusion of extrinsic properties (in virtue of extrinsicness) is unwarranted. From uncontroversial assumptions about supervenience, final value, and moral status, I argue for the relevance of extrinsic properties to moral status based on vulnerability and “reasonable partiality”, as illustrated by pet-keeping. (shrink)

This paper explores how individuals experiencing hostile affective states such as envy, jealousy, hate, contempt, and Ressentiment tend to deceive themselves about their own mental states. More precisely, it examines how the feeling of being diminished in worth experienced by the subject of these hostile affective states motivates a series of self-deceptive maneuvers that generate a fictitious upliftment of the subject’s sense of self. After introducing the topic (section 1), the paper explores the main arguments that explain why several hostile (...) affective states involve a feeling of diminution in the subject’s own value (section 2). Next, it offers an analysis of how the negative feeling of self-worth motivates self-deception. While in extrinsically motivated self-deception, the subject feels diminished in worth after negatively evaluating her own hostile affective states, in intrinsically motivated self-deception, the negative feelings of self-worth are constituent elements of the hostile affective state in question (section 3). Cases of intrinsically motivated self-deception are particularly intriguing because in them the motivation for self-deception is inherent to the hostile affective state, independently of external reasons. I coin the expression “self-deceptive style” to capture the distinctive form in which each hostile affective state intrinsically motivates changes in the architecture of the mind (e.g., perception, imagining, memory, judgment, attention, etc.) in order to generate an upliftment of the self (section 4). To show the descriptive and explanatory function of this concept, a comparative analysis of the self-deceptive styles of envy and hate is provided (section 5). The conclusion summarizes the main findings and explores directions for further research (section 6). (shrink)

This article approaches Judaism through Rabbi Bradley S. Artson’s book, God of Becoming and Relationships: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology. It explores his understanding of how Jewish theology should and does cohere with central features of both process theology and Robert S. Hartman’s formal axiology. These include the axiological/process concept of God, the intrinsic value and valuation of God and unique human beings, and Jewish extrinsic and systemic values, value combinations, and value rankings.

I examine the role of time-sensitivity in science by drawing on a discussion between Kevin Elliott and Daniel McKaughan and Daniel Steel, on the role of non-epistemic values in theory assessment and the epistemic status of speed of inference. I argue that: 1) speed supervenes on ease of use in the cases they discuss, 2) speed is an epistemic value, and 3) Steel’s account of values doesn’t successfully distinguish extrinsically epistemic from non-epistemic values. Finally, I propose an account of (...) time-sensitivity. (shrink)

Ethical debates about liberal eugenics frequently focus on the supposed unnaturalness of its means and possible harm to autonomy. I present a Nietzsche-inspired critique focusing on intention rather than means and harm to abilities rather than to autonomy. I first critique subjective eugenics, the selection of extrinsically valuable traits, drawing on Nietzsche’s notion of ‘slavish’ values reducible to the negation of another’s good. Subjective eugenics slavishly evaluates traits relative to a negatively evaluated norm (eg, above-average intelligence), disguising a harmful intention (...) to diminish the relative value of that norm. I then argue there is no objective form of eugenics on the Nietzschean ground that abilities are not valuable intrinsically; they are valuable only if one possesses the relative power to exercise them. Abilities frustrated by conflict with other abilities or environment are harmful, while disabilities that empower one’s other abilities are beneficial. Consequently, all forms of eugenics are subject to the prior ethical critique of subjective eugenics. (shrink)

In this article I aim to make progress towards the philosophical goal of ascertaining what, if anything, all mental illnesses have in common, attempting to unify a large sub-set of them that have a relational or interpersonal dimension. One major claim is that, if we want a promising theory of mental illness, we must go beyond the dominant western accounts of mental illness/health, which focus on traits intrinsic to a person such as pain/pleasure, lethargy/liveliness, fragmentation/integration, and falsehood/authenticity. A second major (...) claim is that the relational facets of mental illness are plausibly understood theoretically in terms of a person’s inability to identify with others or to exhibit solidarity with them, relational values that are salient in the African philosophical tradition. I show that these two extrinsic properties well explain several intuitive instances of mental illness, including, amongst several others, being abusive, psychopathic, narcissistic, histrionic, paranoid, and phobic. (shrink)

In a chapter from his book, "Confrontation with the Reaper," Feldman critiques Epicurus' assertion that nothing inherently negative befalls us after death. However, it is essential to note that the Epicurean argument is more nuanced than Feldman suggests. In this chapter, Feldman undertakes a comprehensive revision of the Epicurean argument, incorporating numerous assumptions supported by evidence to comprehend it. This multiplicity of revisions makes it challenging to trace how Feldman distorts the original Epicurean argument. In this paper, I will endeavor (...) to reconstruct Feldman's line of reasoning, focusing on his conclusion, which posits that death, by depriving the deceased of the intrinsic value of life, introduces an extrinsic evil. According to this view, had death not occurred, the person would have continued to enjoy the intrinsic value of life. However, it is arguable that death does not deprive a person of the intrinsic good inherent in life because, without death, one would still have the opportunity to experience the intrinsic value of life. This perspective finds support in the examples I present to counter Feldman's conclusion: the cases of a cancer patient, a devout Christian, and a Buddhist philosopher who all met their demise. (shrink)

This paper examines how different forms of performance evaluation relate to aspects of the creative climate in a major pharmaceutical company. The study was based on a large employee-attitude survey that was distributed to all company employees. The study analyses survey results from 5,333 employees at five R&D sites. The results indicate that management’s evaluation of employees (either dialogue-based or control-based) relates to the type of motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) that drives employees, to their style of thinking (value-focused (...) thinking) and on their attitudes to organizational creativity. The paper then discusses implications of these findings for HRM. (shrink)

Kant maintains that the only thing that is good in itself, and therefore good without limitation or qualification, is a good will. This is an objectionable claim in support of a controversial position. The problem is not just that the good will is not the only thing that is good in itself, which indeed it is not, but more importantly, that the good will is not so much a thing that is good in itself as it is the good kind (...) of a thing that is otherwise neither good nor bad in itself. The goodness of a good will is no more intrinsic than the goodness of a good act, good outcome, good attitude, good character, or good person. Nor is it even any more so than something as commonplace as a good laugh or a good cup of coffee. A good will, whatever else it may be, is a will that is good, much like how a good act is an act that is good, a good outcome is an outcome that is good, and so on with the other examples, not one of which is good for any reason other than the goodness predicated of the corresponding subject. This paper thus challenges Kant’s position on ontological grounds. It questions the validity of claiming intrinsic goodness for a complex construct whose goodness is, in fact, extrinsic to its substance. The objection is not that the good will might not turn out to be good after all, which is impossible by definition, designation, or stipulation, but that its goodness is axiomatic and derivative rather than intrinsic or fundamental. (shrink)

I propose a novel model of the human ego (which I define as the tendency to measure one’s value based on extrinsic success rather than intrinsic aptitude or ability). I further propose the conjecture that ego so defined both is a non-adaptive by-product of evolutionary pressures, and has some evolutionary value as an adaptation (protecting self-interest). I explore ramifications of this model, including how it mediates individuals’ reactions to perceived and actual limits of their power, their ability (...) to cope with risk and uncertainty, and how this model may interpolate between rational choice models and cognitive psychology. I develop numerous examples and applications, including poverty traps, to demonstrate the model’s predictive power to elucidate a broad range of social phenomena. -/- [December 2018: Updated version to submit for publication. Expanded Sections 4 and 5.1, revised Section 5.7] -/- . (shrink)

ABSTRACT -/- A propositional attitude (PA) is a belief, desire, fear, etc., that x is the case. This dissertation addresses the question of the semantic content of a specific kind of PA-instance: an instance of a belief of the form all Fs are Gs. The belief that all bachelors are sports fans has this form, while the belief that Spain is a country in Eastern Europe do not. Unlike a state of viewing the color of an orange, a belief-instance is (...) semantically contentful because it has reference, a meaning, logical implications, or a truth-value. While the intrinsic semantics view holds that either concepts or abstract objects are the source of content for PAs, the extrinsic semantics view holds that symbols of a mental language provide this content. I argue that a successful theory of intentionality must explain: (1) the truth-preserving causal powers of PAs, (2) the failure of the deductive principle Substitutivity to preserve truth over sentences that ascribe PAs, and (3) the truth-evaluability of PAs. As an internalist version of the extrinsic semantics view, I first evaluate Fodor’s Computational Theory of Mind, which says the semantic ingredients of mental states are symbols governed by rules of a mental syntax. I argue that in order to meet (1), CTM would have to associate the causal patterns of each thought-type with the inferential relations of some proposition – in an arbitrary or question-begging way. I also evaluate Fodor’s causal theory, as an externalist version of the extrinsic semantics view. This view is that lawlike causal relations between mental symbols and objects determine the reference, and thus the truth-value, of a thought. I argue that Brian Loar’s circularity objection refutes the ability of this theory to meet (3); and I endorse the intrinsic semantics perspective. I evaluate Frege’s theory of abstract, mind-external, and intrinsically semantic objects (senses), as an attempt to meet condition (2). I conclude that mind-external universals are the source of the intrinsically semantic features of concepts. Finally, I put forth a theory called ‘Bare Property Intentionality’, which describes the features of intrinsically representative and semantic concepts that connect them to these universals. (shrink)

Realists about aesthetic judgment believe something like the following: for an aesthetic judgment of be correct, it must respond to the intrinsic aesthetic properties possessed by the object in question (e.g., Meskin et al., 2013; Kieran 2010). However, Cutting’s (2003) empirical research on aesthetic judgment puts pressure on that position. His work indicates that unconscious considerations extrinsic to an artwork can underpin said judgements. This paper takes Cutting’s conclusion a step further: If philosophers grant that it’s possible to appreciate (...) artwork on the basis of unconscious biases, then we never can be fully confident that our aesthetic judgment is undergirded by the intrinsic aesthetic properties of an artwork. Furthermore, if judgment on the basis of unconscious, external reasons cannot be ruled out, we cannot be confident that our aesthetic judgments are ‘correct’. I argue that Cutting’s research is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the extrinsic, unconscious factors that influence aesthetic judgment. Expectation bias formed via social influence and context greatly influence aesthetic judgments and are unavoidable: we inevitably form expectations based on all kinds of contextual cues independently of any actual exposure to the item in question. Such factors make it terribly difficult to be confident in our aesthetic judgments. Even if there are objective properties that mark out some items as aesthetically superior to others, we cannot be sure that our judgments are responding to those properties. (shrink)

In "How to Define Intrinsic Properties" I offered a relational account of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. The basic idea is that F is an intrinsic property of an item x just in case x’s having F consists entirely in x’s having certain internal properties, where an internal property is one whose instantiation does not consist in one’s relation to any distinct items (items other than oneself and one’s proper parts). I still think that this relational analysis is largely correct, and (...) here I provide additional support for it and defend it against some objections that have been raised. In the process I aim to make the account somewhat more precise, especially by contrasting it with a grounding approach to defining the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. (shrink)

McKitrick (2003) proposes that an object has a disposition if and only if there are a manifestation, the circumstances of the manifestation, a counterfactual true of the object, and an overtly dispositional locution referring to the disposition. A disposition is extrinsic if and only if an object has it, but a perfect duplicate of the object might not have it. I present an alternative definition that an object has a disposition if and only if a counterfactual is true of (...) the object that under a certain condition, it would interact with another object in a certain manner. There are three reasons for thinking that my definition is better than her definition. 1. Ockham’s razor favors my definition over McKitrick’s definition. My definition is consistent, while her definition is not, with Lewis’s and her definitions of intrinsic and extrinsic properties. 3. My definition goes well, while her definition does not, with our intuition that an object has a disposition even in a possible world where there is nothing but that object. (shrink)

I separate two intrinsic/extrinsic distinctions that are often conflated: one between properties (the intrinsic/extrinsic, or I/E, distinction) and one between the ways in which properties are had by individuals (the intrinsically/extrinsically, or I-ly/E-ly, distinction). I propose an analysis of the I-ly/E-ly distinction and its relation to the I/E distinction that explains, inter alia, the puzzle of cross-classification: how it can be, for example, that the property of being square can be classified as an intrinsic property and yet individuals (...) can be square intrinsically or else extrinsically. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation has been of considerable interest to bioethicists, in large part because of the effects that the intervention can occasionally have on central features of the recipient’s personality. These effects raise questions regarding the philosophical concept of authenticity. In this article, we expand on our earlier work on the concept of authenticity in the context of deep brain stimulation by developing a diachronic, value-based account of authenticity. Our account draws on both existentialist and essentialist approaches to authenticity, (...) and Laura Waddell Ekstrom’s coherentist approach to personal autonomy. In developing our account, we respond to Sven Nyholm and Elizabeth O’Neill’s synchronic approach to authenticity, and explain how the diachronic approach we defend can have practical utility, contrary to Alexandre Erler and Tony Hope’s criticism of autonomy-based approaches to authenticity. Having drawn a distinction between the authenticity of an individual’s traits and the authenticity of that person’s values, we consider how our conception of authenticity applies to the context of anorexia nervosa in comparison to other prominent accounts of authenticity. We conclude with some reflections on the prudential value of authenticity, and by highlighting how the language of authenticity can be invoked to justify covert forms of paternalism that run contrary to the value of individuality that seems to be at the heart of authenticity. (shrink)

Those who wish to defend the role of aesthetic values in science face a dilemma: Either aesthetic language is used metaphorically for what are ultimately epistemic features, or aesthetic language is used literally but it is difficult to see the importance of such values in science. I introduce a new account that gets around this problem by looking to an overlooked source of aesthetic value in science: the relation between form and content. I argue that a fit between the (...) content of a thought experiment, and the way in which that content is formulated, can have important epistemic pay offs through contributing to scientific understanding. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a distinction between design and teleology, referring mostly to thehistory of these two terms, in order to suggest an alternative strategy for arguments thatintend to demonstrate the existence of the divine. I do not deal with the soundness ofeither design or teleological arguments. I rather emphasise the differences between thesetwo terms, and how these differences involve radically different arguments for the existence of the divine. I argue that the term „design‟ refers to an extrinsic (...) feature that was in history understood to be imposed by God in nature, while one may argue for an internal tendency, what I call „teleology‟. I first offer a historical tour of design arguments and how the basic notion of design was understood in extrinsic terms. I then briefly present three kinds of objections available in history to these arguments: philosophical, scientific, and theological. I finally move to discussing an intrinsicunderstanding of teleology, and how this notion differs from that of extrinsic design. Iend the paper showing how this notion could be useful in interpreting processes innature, in particular the reproductive tendencies in living beings. (shrink)

Many philosophers assume that, when making moral decisions under uncertainty, we should choose the option that has the greatest expected moral value, regardless of how risky it is. But their arguments for maximizing expected moral value do not support it over rival, risk-averse approaches. In this paper, I present a novel argument for maximizing expected value: when we think about larger series of decisions that each decision is a part of, all but the most risk-averse agents would (...) prefer that we consistently choose the option with the highest expected value. To the extent that what we choose on a given occasion should be guided by the entire series of choices we prefer, then on each occasion, we should choose the option with the highest expected moral value. (shrink)

I first distinguish between different forms of the buck-passing account of value and clarify my target in other respects on buck-passers' behalf. I then raise a number of problems for the different forms of the buck-passing view that I have distinguished.