Value, Reality, and Desire - Softcover

Oddie, Graham

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199562385 ISBN 13: 9780199562381

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Value, Reality, and Desire is an extended argument for a robust realism about value. The robust realist affirms the following distinctive theses. There are genuine claims about value which are true or false--there are facts about value. These value-facts are mind-independent - they are not reducible to desires or other mental states, or indeed to any non-mental facts of a non-evaluative kind. And these genuine, mind-independent, irreducible value-facts are causally efficacious. Values, quite literally, affect us.

These are not particularly fashionable theses, and taken as a whole they go somewhat against the grain of quite a lot of recent work in the metaphysics of value. Further, against the received view, Oddie argues that we can have knowledge of values by experiential acquaintance, that there are experiences of value which can be both veridical and appropriately responsive to the values themselves. Finally, these value-experiences are not the products of some exotic and implausible faculty of "intuition." Rather, they are perfectly mundane and familiar mental states - namely, desires. This view explains how values can be "intrinsically motivating," without falling foul of the widely accepted "queerness" objection. There are, of course, other objections to each of the realist's claims. In showing how and why these objections fail, Oddie introduces a wealth of interesting and original insights about issues of wider interest--including the nature of properties, reduction, supervenience, and causation. The result is a novel and interesting account which illuminates what would otherwise be deeply puzzling features of value and desire and the connections between them.

About this title

About the Author:

Graham Oddie is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder

Review:

"Oddie gives you something worth thinking about on almost every page, and I am envious of his ability to put complex ideas with crystal clarity.... For anyone who wants to think rigorously but creatively about the metaphysics and epistemology that moral realism needs to be plausible, this book is
essential reading."--Timothy Chappell, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"Oddie gives you something worth thinking about on almost every page, and I am envious of his ability to put complex ideas with crystal clarity.... For anyone who wants to think rigorously but creatively about the metaphysics and epistemology that moral realism needs to be plausible, this book is
essential reading."--Timothy Chappell, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"Oddie gives you something worth thinking about on almost every page, and I am envious of his ability to put complex ideas with crystal clarity.... For anyone who wants to think rigorously but creatively about the metaphysics and epistemology that moral realism needs to be plausible, this book is
essential reading."--Timothy Chappell, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"Oddie gives you something worth thinking about on almost every page, and I am envious of his ability to put complex ideas with crystal clarity.... For anyone who wants to think rigorously but creatively about the metaphysics and epistemology that moral realism needs to be plausible, this book is essential reading."--Timothy Chappell, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0199562385
• ISBN 13: 9780199562381
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272