Values and Secondary Qualities

Abstract

Some arguments for the subjectivity of value are premised on the absence of any reference to values in the objective world as described by the natural sciences. According to these arguments, it is a necessary condition for the existence of objective values that values form part of what John Mackie called ‘the fabric of the world’ (Mackie 1977, 15). On this view, objectivity entails mind independence: the domain of objectivity is a domain of existence independent of all thought and experience of it. It is a domain that could form the content of a representation that presupposes no particular perspective on the world — what has variously been called ‘the absolute conception’, or a View from nowhere’ (c.f. Williams 1985; Nagel 1986). Given these assumptions, the subjectivity of value follows from the further claim that values are not mind independent entities with a non-eliminable place in an absolute conception of reality.¹ Given that we can only make sense of values with reference to a perspective on the world of beings disposed to value some things over others, there are no objective values, and some form of subjectivism about value must be true.²