Valuing and Caring

Abstract

What is it to "value" something, in the semi-technical sense of the term that Gary Watson establishes? I argue that valuing something consists in caring about it. Caring involves not only emotional dispositions of the sort that Agnieszka Jaworska has elaborated, but also a distinctive cognitive disposition -namely, a (defeasible) disposition to believe the object cared about to be a source of agent-relative reasons for action and for emotion. Understood in this way, an agent's carings have a stronger claim to "speak for" her as her values than do other attitudes that have been proposed for this role. In particular, an agent's carings establish more robust psychological continuities and cross-temporal connections than do self-governing policies of the sort that Michael Bratman has described; and they forge diachronic coherence not just in her deliberation and action, as self-governing policies do, but also in her cognitive and emotional life. An agent's carings thus help to constitute her identity as a temporally persisting subject. Self-governing policies are at best ersatz-values, which an agent may choose to adopt when she finds that her proper values -her cares -leave her course underdetermined.

Caring and incapacity

“…Suppose, however, that what the deliberator in question is looking for a way to accomplish is not something that she merely desires, but something that she cares 54 I offer a more complete account in Seidman (2009). 55 I develop this picture in much greater detail in Seidman (2008).…”

Cares, Identification, and Agency Reductionism

“…To care about something involves emotional and motivational dispositions (Shoemaker, ; Jaworska, ; Seidman, ). To care about X is to be disposed to experience a range of emotions dependent upon one's beliefs or perceptions concerning the gains and losses of X (Shoemaker, , p. 91; cf.…”

“…To care about X is to be disposed to experience a range of emotions dependent upon one's beliefs or perceptions concerning the gains and losses of X (Shoemaker, , p. 91; cf. Anderson, ; Roberts, ; Jaworska, ; Seidman, ; Helm, ). If things go well for X, one is disposed to rejoice, or if poorly, one is disposed to feel sad.…”

“…110–111). Moreover, and relatedly, caring involves cognitive dispositions: to care about X ‘involves seeing X as a source of practical reasons for oneself’ (Seidman, , p. 287). The connection between caring and evaluative judgments is more tenuous.…”

Blame, Communication, and Morally Responsible Agency

“…In the literature we find two alternative pictures, both less friendly to the argument from communication. The first, from Talbert, has been formulated specifically to challenge the argument from 25 On the nature of caring, see Frankfurt (1999), Jaworska (2007), Seidman (2009), andShoemaker (2003). On caring about moral values in specific, see .…”