Organic unities

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 2, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 321-337

  Lemos, Noah ^a  

^a DEPAUW UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Conditional value; Intrinsic value; Organic unities; Pleasure; Value

Indexed keywords

EID: 0005071082     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1009747204702     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), p. 69.
2. W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good. Ibid., p. 72.
3. Michael J. Zimmerman, "Evaluatively Incomplete States of Affairs," Philosophical Studies 43 (1983), p. 219.
4. G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), p. 28.
5. Roderick Chisholm, Brentano and Intrinsic Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 73.
6. For a good discussion of these problems, see Fred Feldman, Utilitarianism, Hedonism and Desert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Inc., 1997), pp. 112-124
7. also see Noah Lemos, Intrinsic Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 61-66.
8. Chisholm, p. 75.
9. See Lemos, pp. 196-200. Though Chisholm's definition of an organic unity is flawed, he does distinguish between ten types of organic unities without making use of the notion of a sum. See Chisholm, pp. 88-89.
10. A somewhat more complicated formulation of this principle might be in order. Consider the following possible objection. Let p = Smith is happy, q = there are stones, and r = there are stumps. Let W = p or q and W' = p or r. Suppose we assume that W and W' have the same intrinsic value. Now consider the value of W and ∼q and the value of W' and ∼q. Here it is plausible to think that the value of W and ∼q is greater than the value of W' and ∼q. But it is not obvious that either of these wholes is an organic unity, even though it is plausible to think that W, W',and ∼q are all neutral. We can amend the principle in the following way. Let us say: (D3) p includes q = Df. p and q are necessarily such that whoever entertains p entertains q. (D4) p is independent of q =Df. pand q are necessarily such that (i) p includes no state of affairs that is incompatible with any state of affairs included in q, (ii) p includes no state of affairs that is implied by state of affairs that is included in q. We might then put the principle: If W and W' have the same value, and the conjunction of W and p has a different value than the conjunction of W' and p,andWis independent of p and W is independent of p, then either W and p or W' and p is an organic unity.
11. Franz Brentano, "Two Unique Cases or Preferability," The Origins of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, trans. Roderick Chisholm and Elizabeth Schneewind (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 90. Aristotle's remark is from the Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, Chapter 3, 1174a, 1-4.
12. Brentano, The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, p. 90.
13. Brentano, The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. Ibid., p. 91.
14. Ross, p. 137.
15. In "Two Kinds of Organic Unity" (see this issue of The Journal of Ethics).
16. Thomas Hurka suggests that this is a "strained" understanding of parts and wholes. He suggests that we should not view the malicious pleasure as having a good part. More precisely, he seems to think that we should not view the malicious pleasure as having parts. Such a view does not seem strained to me. On the contrary, Hurka's recursive theory implies that there is one thing, the malicious pleasure, that is both intrinsically good and intrinsically bad. Since I think nothing can be both, I would urge that we need to distinguish parts and say that the whole is bad, but it has a part that is good.
17. Chisholm, p. 72. According to Chisholm, Brentano makes this point in an unpublished manuscript entitled, "On the Good that There is in Order and Arrangement."
18. Brentano, The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, p. 149.
19. Ross, p. 138.
20. Michael Zimmerman discusses and defends the existence of such things in "Evalua- tively Incomplete States of Affairs," pp. 211-224.
21. Chisholm, pp. 81-82.
22. Ross, p. 138.
23. Moore, p. 30.
24. Feldman, p. 136.
25. Aristotle, Rhetoric, Bk. 2, Chapter 9, 1386b.
26. If we reject the principle of determinate value, it would seem that we must also reject some principles that have been taken as axioms in the logic of intrinsic preferability. We should, for example, reject the following principle that Chisholm and Ernest Sosa take as an axiom: (p)(q)(r)[(∼(pPq) and ∼(qPr) --∼(pPr)]. Roderick Chisholm and Ernest Sosa, "On the Logic of 'Intrinsically Better,'" American Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1966), p. 247.
27. Zimmerman points out that we should reject this axiom if we hold that some states of affairs are evaluatively incomplete. We should also reject their definition of what it is for two states of affairs to have the same intrinsic value. Chisholm and Sosa say p has the same intrinsic value as q = Df. ∼(pPq) ∼(qPp).
28. It remains unclear to me that we should reject the principle of determinate value. Let me note the following worry. Suppose that we hold that (7), Jones's being pleased, is indeterminately good and that it is not better, worse, or the same in value as (8), Jones's being pleased at t to intensity 2 that Smith is having a pleasure that Smith deserves. Now, consider Jones's being pleased and Smith's being pleased. Is this whole better than (8)? What about Jones's being pleased and Smith's being pleased and Brown's being pleased and Gray's being pleased? Would we at some point find a whole having nothing but indeterminately good parts, but also find that it is better than (8)?
29. I am grateful to Michael Zimmerman for organizing such a splendid conference on intrinsic value, to Brad Hooker, the commentator on this paper, for his thoughtful criticisms, and to the other participants in the symposium from whom I learned much.