Subjective accounts of well-being and reasons for action have a remarkable pedigree. The idea that normativity flows from what an agent cares about-that something is valuable because it is valued-has appealed to a wide range of great thinkers. But at the same time this idea has seemed to many of the best minds in ethics to be outrageous or worse, not least because it seems to threaten the status of morality. Mutual incomprehension looms over the discussion. From Valuing to Value, written by an influential former critic of subjectivism, owns up to the problematic features to which critics have pointed while arguing that such criticisms can be blunted and the overall view rendered defensible. In this collection of his essays David Sobel does not shrink from acknowledging the real tension between subjective views of reasons and morality, yet argues that such a tension does not undermine subjectivism. In this volume the fundamental commitments of subjectivism are clarified and
revealed to be rather plausible and well-motivated, while the most influential criticisms of subjectivism are straightforwardly addressed and found wanting.
Industry Reviews
This book is a substantial achievement ... I unhesitatingly recommend it to anyone interested in reasons, well-being or rationality. * Luke Elson, Analysis *
The book is a showcase of first-rate value theory in the analytic tradition, tightly situated in debates about the nature of well-being and the nature of normative reasons, with a few forays into moral theory and moral psychology. * Owen C. King, Utilitas *
Sobel's book is an extremely fair and subtle examination of subjectivism as well as of some arguments against subjectivism such as Parfit's and Scanlon's critiques. All essays in this collection two of them are co-authored by David Copp are very clearly written, contain lots of well-grounded arguments and are therefore of greatest interest for those who tend to think that subjectivism is true as well as for those who tend to think that this account is wrong. * Tobias Gutmann, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice *
Sobel's essays in this book are some of the finest ever written in moral philosophy. Whatever one's favoured theory of value, I hope we can all agree that this book is an invaluable resource. * Ben Bramble, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *