Other Evaluative Concepts and Properties

A final type of objection to the buck-passing account of value (BPA) argues that it encounters problems with evaluative properties beyond goodness simpliciter and final value. Roger Crisp and Pekka Väyrynen have argued that BPA must extend to provide an account of certain thick concepts, namely thick evaluative concepts, but provides an implausible account of the thick evaluative. This chapter argues that if BPA must extend to the thick evaluative, it provides a plausible account of the thick evaluative. W. D. Ross argued that to have certain pro-attitudes towards an object, such as to be in a state of admiration towards something, is partially to think of the object of these pro-attitudes as good. So accounts of goodness like BPA are circular. However, this chapter argues that BPA can accommodate Ross’s view of pro-attitudes without circularity and that alternatives to BPA cannot provide a more informative account of what it is to have a pro-attitude than BPA.