Organon F
Volume 32, February 2025, Issue 1, Pages 29–41
ISSN 2585-7150 (online)
Research Article
An Objection to Railton’s Full-Information Analysis of Non-Moral Value
Xuanpu Zhuang
This paper presents an objection to Peter Railton’s full-information account of non-moral value. According to this account, if an idealized individual A who is fully rational and has full information wants the non-idealized A to desire X, then X is good for A. Those desires like X are called objective interests. Railton’s analysis holds that non-moral values are constituted by natural facts that are independent of subjective opinions. I argue that it is hard for the full-information analysis to achieve all its goals. My discussion focuses on intrinsic interests—those good for an individual without reference to any other objective interests. I attempt to show that either it is hard for the full-information account to give a normative force on individuals, or the account is circular. The conclusion I reach is moderate: in its current version, the full-information analysis of non-moral value cannot explain the link between the normative and the empirical.
Intrinsic interests; moral realism; normativity; the full-information analysis of non-moral value.
Author
Xuanpu Zhuang
Affiliation
Zhejiang University
Address
School of Philosophy, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Rd, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China
Received
22 November 2022
Revised
30 August 2024
Accepted
15 February 2025
Publishers
Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
APA
Zhuang, X. (2025). An Objection to Railton’s Full-Information Analysis of Non-Moral Value. Organon F, 32(1), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32102
Chicago
Zhuang, Xuanpu Zhuang. 2025. "An Objection to Railton’s Full-Information Analysis of Non-Moral Value." Organon F 32 (1): 29–41. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32102
Harvard
Zhuang, X. (2025). An Objection to Railton’s Full-Information Analysis of Non-Moral Value. Organon F, 32(1), pp. 29–41. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32102
© Xuanpu Zhuang
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