This thesis explores the idea that value provides objective reasons for action. I argue in Chapter 1 that identifying reasons for action which are objective (defined in opposition to "perspectival"), and avoid narrow relativity to the interests of the agent, might contribute to a wider programme of establishing that there can be objectively right answers to live moral questions. Chapter 2 argues that there is good reason to pursue such a programme rather than embracing relativism or a more radical anti- objectivism. Chapter 3 argues that value, ofthe kind associated with making lives go well, generates reasons for action, and Chapter 4 assesses various candidate accounts of value. Chapter 5 proposes a subjective account which (unlike hedonism) allows states of the world as well as mental states to have value, but (unlike desire accounts) sees value as conferred by attitudes focused upon the present, not the future, arguing that a subjective account nevertheless allows us to regard value as objective in the required sense. Chapters 6 and 7 argue that, although value is essentially relative, talk about value- based reasons can avoid narrow relativity if we adopt an inclusive perspective. Where there are no conflicts of value, if something has value for someone, it has value "period". Chapter 8 argues that it should be possible in principle to resolve conflicts of value, and examines potential difficulties stemming from intemalism in the theory of motivation, concluding that these do not undermine my project. Chapter 9 concludes that my proposals establish that there is no fundamental reason to suppose that there cannot be objective answers to moral questions, and tell us something about what such answers should look like, whilst leaving further questions that would need to be addressed in seeking to fulfil the wider programme.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:582527 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Taylor, Timothy Edwin |
| Publisher | Birkbeck (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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