Overview

Subjective accounts of well-being and reasons for action have a remarkable pedigree. The idea that normativity flows from what an agent cares about-that something is valuable because it is valued-has appealed to a wide range of great thinkers. But at the same time this idea has seemed to many of the best minds in ethics to be outrageous or worse, not least because it seems to threaten the status of morality. Mutual incomprehension looms over the discussion. From Valuing to Value, written by an influential former critic of subjectivism, owns up to the problematic features to which critics have pointed while arguing that such criticisms can be blunted and the overall view rendered defensible. In this collection of his essays David Sobel does not shrink from acknowledging the real tension between subjective views of reasons and morality, yet argues that such a tension does not undermine subjectivism. In this volume the fundamental commitments of subjectivism are clarified and revealed to be rather plausible and well-motivated, while the most influential criticisms of subjectivism are straightforwardly addressed and found wanting.

Full Product Details

Author:   David Sobel (Syracuse University)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.30cm
Weight:   0.498kg
ISBN:  

9780198843887

ISBN 10:   0198843887
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   31 May 2019
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Introduction 1: Subjectivism and Reasons to be Moral 2: Full Information Accounts of Well-Being 3: On the Subjectivity of Welfare 4: Well-Being as the Object of Moral Consideration 5: Do the Desires of Rational Agents Converge? 6: Subjective Accounts of Reasons for Action 7: Explanation, Internalism, and Reasons for Action 8: (co-authored with David Copp): Against Direction of Fit Accounts of Belief and Desire 9: Varieties of Hedonism 10: (co-authored with David Copp): Morality and Virtue 11: Pain for Objectivists: The Case of Matters of Mere Taste 12: The Impotence of the Demandingness Objection 13: Subjectivism and Idealization 14: Parfit s Case Against Subjectivism 15: Subjectivism and Proportionalism

Reviews

This book is a substantial achievement ... I unhesitatingly recommend it to anyone interested in reasons, well-being or rationality. * Luke Elson, Analysis * The book is a showcase of first-rate value theory in the analytic tradition, tightly situated in debates about the nature of well-being and the nature of normative reasons, with a few forays into moral theory and moral psychology. * Owen C. King, Utilitas * Sobel's essays in this book are some of the finest ever written in moral philosophy. Whatever one's favoured theory of value, I hope we can all agree that this book is an invaluable resource. * Ben Bramble, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * Sobel's book is an extremely fair and subtle examination of subjectivism as well as of some arguments against subjectivism . . . All essays in this collection . . . are very clearly written, contain lots of well-grounded arguments and are therefore of greatest interest for those who tend to think that subjectivism is true as well as for those who tend to think that this account is wrong. * Tobias Gutmann, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice *

Sobel's book is an extremely fair and subtle examination of subjectivism as well as of some arguments against subjectivism . . . All essays in this collection . . . are very clearly written, contain lots of well-grounded arguments and are therefore of greatest interest for those who tend to think that subjectivism is true as well as for those who tend to think that this account is wrong. * Tobias Gutmann, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice * Sobel's essays in this book are some of the finest ever written in moral philosophy. Whatever one's favoured theory of value, I hope we can all agree that this book is an invaluable resource. * Ben Bramble, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *

Author Information

David Sobel is Guttag Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Syracuse University. Much of his research has reflected an abiding interest in understanding and defending desire-based or subjectivist accounts of well-being and reasons for action. With Peter Vallentyne and Steven Wall he co-edits Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy.

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