Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT We are valuing beings, beings who possess the capacity to value things. But what is it “to value” something? The most common accounts in the literature hold that to value an item is either to have a first‐order or a second‐order desire toward it; or to believe that item to be valuable; or to care about that item; or to have a combination of all these mental states. In our paper, we raise some objections against all these accounts and defend a new affective account of valuings. Unlike standard affective accounts, according to which the term “valuing” refers to a single type of affective state, such as care, we hold that “valuing” refers to the members of a class of affective states, namely, the class of sentiments. On our view, to value something is to have a particular sentiment toward it. Since sentiments can be of different types, our account implies that there are as many ways of valuing things as there are types of sentiments.
DOI: 10.1111/phpr.70093
Authors: Mauro Rossi, Christine Tappolet
Institutions: Université du Québec à Montréal, Université de Montréal
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,900
Award: G76845371
OpenAlex ID: W7128080137