Tropic of Value

Författare

Redaktör

Toni Rønnow-rasmussen
Michael Zimmerman

Summary, in English

In Rabinowicz & Rønnow-Rasmussen (1999), we defended the following claims:

(i) Not only states of affairs, or facts, but also concrete objects, such as things or persons, may have final value (value for their own sake);

(ii) The final value of a concrete object need not be intrinsic, i.e., it need not be exclusively based on the internal (non-relational) properties of its bearer;

(iii) The final value of a concrete object is not reducible to the value of some states of affairs that involve the object in question.

Our arguments for (i) – (iii) have been challenged. This paper is an attempt to respond to some of these challenges, viz. those that concern the reducibility issue. The discussion presupposes a Brentano-inspired account of value in terms of fitting responses to value bearers. Attention is given to a yet another type of reduction proposal, according to which the ultimate bearers of final value are abstract particulars (so-called tropes) rather than abstract states or facts. While the proposal is attractive (if one is prepared to allow for the existence of tropes), it confronts serious difficulties. To recognise tropes as potential bearers of final value, along with other objects, is one thing; but to reduce the final value of concrete objects to the final value of tropes is another matter.

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