Instead, I might describe myself as a preferentialist or subjectivist about what matters, so that whatâs better is just whatâs preferred, or what would be better according to our preferences, attitudes or ways of caring, in general.
This sounds similar to Christine Korsgaardâs (Kantian) view on value, where things only matter because they matter to sentient beings (people, to Kant). I think I was primed to notice this because I remember you had some great comments on my interview with her from four years ago.
Quoting her:
Utilitarians think that the value of people and animals derives from the value of the states they are capable of â pleasure and pain, satisfaction and frustration. In fact, in a way it is worse: In utilitarianism, people and animals donât really matter at all; they are just the place where the valuable things happen. Thatâs why the boundaries between them do not matter. Kantians think that the value of the states derives from the value of the people and animals. In a Kantian theory, your pleasures and pains matter because you matter, you are an âend in yourselfâ and your pains and pleasures matter to you.
I guess âutilitarianismâ above could be replaced with âhedonismâ etc. and it would sort of match your writing that hedonism etc. is âguilty [...] of valuing things in ways that donât match how we care about thingsâ. Anyway, she discusses this view in much greater detail in Fellow Creatures.
See also St. Jules, 2024 and Roelofs, 2022 (pdf) for more on ways of caring and moral patienthood, using different terminology.
Yes, it is pretty close to Korsgaard! I think I actually had Korsgaard in mind and might have checked some of her shorter pieces while working on this, although âobject viewsâ ended up being what I actually wanted here. Also, thereâs this piece by Jeff Sebo explaining Korsgaardâs constructivism.
Iâm not completely sure I would call your view constructivist, because of this comment by Sebo under the same piece.
Also, hereâs a random thought, which I donât necessarily think works/âholds for your view, but Iâm curious what you think. I think objective tends to mean, as Huemer puts it in Ethical Intuitionism, constitutively independent of the attitudes of observers specifically, rather than anyoneâs attitudes or stances. For example, a preference utilitarian can think there is an objective moral fact that it is bad to, all else equal, do something to someone that they disprefer, even though the âbadnessâ comes from their dispreference. It seems like that would be subjective only if the claim was that it was bad according to some observer. But I donât know if that means your view accepts objective or stance-independent moral facts.
For example, a preference utilitarian can think there is an objective moral fact that it is bad to, all else equal, do something to someone that they disprefer, even though the âbadnessâ comes from their dispreference. It seems like that would be subjective only if the claim was that it was bad according to some observer.
Iâm personally not sympathetic to such a claim. What makes it objective? Rather, to me, itâs just bad to the person who disprefers it (and possibly other individuals). They are an observer. They are observers of their own mental states and things in the world, and they have attitudes about them.
The view I describe in this piece could be made objective in the way you describe, though.
Thanks for writing this, itâs very interesting.
This sounds similar to Christine Korsgaardâs (Kantian) view on value, where things only matter because they matter to sentient beings (people, to Kant). I think I was primed to notice this because I remember you had some great comments on my interview with her from four years ago.
Quoting her:
I guess âutilitarianismâ above could be replaced with âhedonismâ etc. and it would sort of match your writing that hedonism etc. is âguilty [...] of valuing things in ways that donât match how we care about thingsâ. Anyway, she discusses this view in much greater detail in Fellow Creatures.
Fyi, the latter two of these links are broken.
Thanks Erich!
Yes, it is pretty close to Korsgaard! I think I actually had Korsgaard in mind and might have checked some of her shorter pieces while working on this, although âobject viewsâ ended up being what I actually wanted here. Also, thereâs this piece by Jeff Sebo explaining Korsgaardâs constructivism.
Fixed! Thanks.
Iâm not completely sure I would call your view constructivist, because of this comment by Sebo under the same piece.
Also, hereâs a random thought, which I donât necessarily think works/âholds for your view, but Iâm curious what you think. I think objective tends to mean, as Huemer puts it in Ethical Intuitionism, constitutively independent of the attitudes of observers specifically, rather than anyoneâs attitudes or stances. For example, a preference utilitarian can think there is an objective moral fact that it is bad to, all else equal, do something to someone that they disprefer, even though the âbadnessâ comes from their dispreference. It seems like that would be subjective only if the claim was that it was bad according to some observer. But I donât know if that means your view accepts objective or stance-independent moral facts.
Iâm personally not sympathetic to such a claim. What makes it objective? Rather, to me, itâs just bad to the person who disprefers it (and possibly other individuals). They are an observer. They are observers of their own mental states and things in the world, and they have attitudes about them.
The view I describe in this piece could be made objective in the way you describe, though.