Value Judgments

Winner of the Royal Musical Association (RMA) 2023 Practice Research Prize:

If there is one trope that has become the lynchpin of the origin narratives of the young discipline of music performance studies, it is the idea that musical performance represents the "other" of the musical score. Many of the recent debates that effected a paradigm shift in music scholarship highlight the ontological and epistemological divergences between the score and musical performance, and also debunk the various myths and prejudices that have been woven around music performances and performers through the textualist paradigm, which essentialised and naturalised the musical score as the holder of "the music" and "the" source of disciplinary knowledge. Following the disciplinary "performative turn" during the twenty-first century, the effects of textualist habits of thought on scholarly discourses have been steadily on the wane. Nevertheless, the myth of a direct and immediate route between the score and performance - between the page and the stage - appears especially obstinate and continues to lurk around, particularly in the context of the analysis and performance literature. In this article, I discuss some of the complex embodied-affective processes that connect the page and the stage from a performer's perspective, through case studies involving my performance experiences of a Corrente by J. S. Bach, a keyboard sonata by Domenico Scarlatti, and an excerpt from Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini".

In this article, I aim to open up and explore the meaning making processes, from a performer’s perspective, that unfold in the creative space between the page and the stage that textualist approaches eliminated through their disembodied, ahistorical, essentialising and naturalizing discourses, and show the thoroughly contingent nature of these processes. One of the most significant arguments that will emerge from my discussion is that between the page and the stage are a large number of factors, including the uniquely embodied senses, artistic sensibilities, experiences and expert practical knowledge of each performer, that together constitute her artistic intentions, in the absence of which there would be no artistic musical performance. My discussion proceeds by drawing together critical evaluation of relevant scholarly literature, analytical thought, phenomenological enquiry and, most significantly, artistic research: the latter mobilizes the artistic processes of performance making as research tools and opens up novel lines of enquiry motivated by a performer’s expert knowledge about, as well as situated experiences of, performing music. I further argue that eradicating the deleterious effects of the textualist urge to discipline the performer's body and emotions, to assimilate their individuality into an enforced utopia and homogenise performance expression requires introducing, into scholarly thinking and discourses, all the deep level contingencies that I emphasise in this article as essential elements connecting musical texts and performances. It also requires analysts to give up the modernist de-historicising fantasy that allows them to regard themselves as privileged and exemplary listeners standing in for all auditors, and in the case of the analysis and performance literature, standing in for all performers. However much textualist habits might sideline the drastic qualities of musical performance in scholarly discourses, performers continue to be fleshly, willful, creative individual affectively committed to the unruly and dynamic realm of performance making, and invest their performances with aesthetic qualities that grow out of their lived experiences and intentions as they continually move between the page and the stage.
Winner of the Royal Musical Association (RMA) 2023 Practice Research Prize:


In this article, I aim to open up and explore the meaning making processes, from a performer’s perspective, that unfold in the creative space between the page and the stage that textualist approaches eliminated through their disembodied, ahistorical, essentialising and naturalizing discourses, and show the thoroughly contingent nature of these processes. One of the most significant arguments that will emerge from my discussion is that between the page and the stage are a large number of factors, including the uniquely embodied senses, artistic sensibilities, experiences and expert practical knowledge of each performer, that together constitute her artistic intentions, in the absence of which there would be no artistic musical performance. My discussion proceeds by drawing together critical evaluation of relevant scholarly literature, analytical thought, phenomenological enquiry and, most significantly, artistic research: the latter mobilizes the artistic processes of performance making as research tools and opens up novel lines of enquiry motivated by a performer’s expert knowledge about, as well as situated experiences of, performing music.

Foot argues that there are certain things that all human beings - perhaps all rational agents - need.  This gives a sense in which certain values and disvalues can be called 'objective'.  I suggest that, with certain relatively minor adjustments, her argument can be made cogent but that it cannot be used to show that there are objective answers to questions about what one should do when values conflict.  If Foot's own virtue ethics, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics or any other first-order moral system were to be established as objectively valid, this would require some completely different form of argumentation. 


Almost sixty years ago Philippa Foot published an article that began: To many people it seems that the most notable advance in moral philosophy during the past fifty years or so has been the refutation of naturalism; and they are a little shocked that at this late date such an issue should be reopened. It is easy to understand their attitude: given certain apparently unquestionable assumptions, it would be about as sensible to try to reintroduce naturalism as to try to square the circle. Those who see it like this have satisfied themselves that they know in advance that any naturalistic theory must have a catch in it somewhere, and are put out at having to waste more time exposing an old fallacy. This paper is an attempt to persuade them to look critically at the premises on which their arguments are based. 1 The paper in question was one of a number written by Foot around the time that were highly successful in reopening the issue of naturalism in ethics. Nowadays no one can just take it for granted that naturalism has been refuted, that there is a sharp distinction (or indeed any clear distinction) between fact and value or that it is impossible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. This is not to say that the naturalists have been completely victorious, of course; only that naturalism is today a live option. I shall argue that Foot's paper contains an important insight and an equally important mistake; and that the insight and the mistake are linked. I believe that the thinking behind it has influenced the subsequent course of moral philosophy to a quite remarkable extent and that this has been in some ways beneficial and in some ways harmful – not surprisingly, if I am right in seeing it as containing both truth and error. I do not want to exaggerate the influence of this one paper 2 but I do not know of any other that so neatly encapsulates the coupled insight and mistake. The anti-naturalism that Foot is attacking she characterises as follows: It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole of moral philosophy, as it is now widely taught, rests on a contrast between statements of fact and evaluations, which runs something like this: The truth or falsity of statements of fact is shewn by means of evidence; and what counts as evidence is laid down in the meaning of the expressions occurring in the statement of fact … It follows that no two people can make the same statement and count completely different things as evidence; in the end one at least of them could be convicted of linguistic ignorance. It also follows that if a man is given good evidence for a factual conclusion he cannot just refuse to accept the conclusion on the ground that in his scheme of things this evidence is not evidence at all. 3 But, on the view she is criticising, [w]ith evaluations, however, it is different. An evaluation is not connected logically with the factual statements on which it is based. One man may say that a thing is good because of some fact about it, and another may refuse to take that fact as any evidence, for nothing is laid down in the meaning of 'good' which connects it with one piece of 'evidence' rather than another. It follows that a moral eccentric could argue to moral conclusions from quite idiosyncratic premises; he could say, for instance, that a man was a good man because he clasped and unclasped his hands and never turned NNE after

This article discusses the justification of value judgments. It distinguishes between monological approaches, according to which justification is a single a-temporal argument, and procedural approaches according to which justification is a process stretched out in time, and very often consists of a kind of dialogue between the proponent of a thesis and an audience which the proponent aims to convince. The article uses the procedural approach to elucidate how an argument can be presented in, for example, a scientific paper.
Within the category of monological approaches, a distinction is made between argumentation in the form of a deductively valid argument or at least something similar, and argumentation based on balancing reasons for and against a thesis. Special attention is paid to the issues that arise from the fact that value judgments are supervenient, can be universalised and presuppose a standard which has no truth value. Comparative value judgments, stating that one alternative is better than some other alternative, or even the best, also receive special attention.

Almost sixty years ago Philippa Foot published an article that began: To many people it seems that the most notable advance in moral philosophy during the past fifty years or so has been the refutation of naturalism; and they are a little shocked that at this late date such an issue should be reopened. It is easy to understand their attitude: given certain apparently unquestionable assumptions, it would be about as sensible to try to reintroduce naturalism as to try to square the circle. Those who see it like this have satisfied themselves that they know in advance that any naturalistic theory must have a catch in it somewhere, and are put out at having to waste more time exposing an old fallacy. This paper is an attempt to persuade them to look critically at the premises on which their arguments are based. 1 The paper in question was one of a number written by Foot around the time that were highly successful in reopening the issue of naturalism in ethics. Nowadays no one can just take it for granted that naturalism has been refuted, that there is a sharp distinction (or indeed any clear distinction) between fact and value or that it is impossible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. This is not to say that the naturalists have been completely victorious, of course; only that naturalism is today a live option. I shall argue that Foot's paper contains an important insight and an equally important mistake; and that the insight and the mistake are linked. I believe that the thinking behind it has influenced the subsequent course of moral philosophy to a quite remarkable extent and that this has been in some ways beneficial and in some ways harmful – not surprisingly, if I am right in seeing it as containing both truth and error. I do not want to exaggerate the influence of this one paper 2 but I do not know of any other that so neatly encapsulates the coupled insight and mistake. The anti-naturalism that Foot is attacking she characterises as follows: It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole of moral philosophy, as it is now widely taught, rests on a contrast between statements of fact and evaluations, which runs something like this: The truth or falsity of statements of fact is shewn by means of evidence; and what counts as evidence is laid down in the meaning of the expressions occurring in the statement of fact … It follows that no two people can make the same statement and count completely different things as evidence; in the end one at least of them could be convicted of linguistic ignorance. It also follows that if a man is given good evidence for a factual conclusion he cannot just refuse to accept the conclusion on the ground that in his scheme of things this evidence is not evidence at all. 3 But, on the view she is criticising, [w]ith evaluations, however, it is different. An evaluation is not connected logically with the factual statements on which it is based. One man may say that a thing is good because of some fact about it, and another may refuse to take that fact as any evidence, for nothing is laid down in the meaning of 'good' which connects it with one piece of 'evidence' rather than another. It follows that a moral eccentric could argue to moral conclusions from quite idiosyncratic premises; he could say, for instance, that a man was a good man because he clasped and unclasped his hands and never turned NNE after

This paper critically examines some underlying assumptions of the “popular” economics writing of recent years, e.g. the Freakonomics literature. In particular, two broad problems emerge in these writings. First, popular economics is myopic in that it views incentives as the fundamental economic concept, to the neglect of more fundamental ideas, such as (a) institutional arrangements which determine the pattern of incentives, and (b) economic laws which render the pattern irrelevant. Second, the literature includes hidden value judgments which result from its methods of thinking about incentives. In this view, “incentives” are both broad enough to include all possible motivations, and narrow enough to imply agency relationships. As a result, economic analysis is sometimes falsely confused with ethics, or includes normative judgments not implied by economics proper.

There are certain 'hard cases' of weakness of will that seem to occur, indeed to be common, but are very difficult to give a non-paradoxical account of.  It is just not clear how they are possible.  This paper is largely an attempt to get them in focus.  What conditions must such weak-willed actions satisfy?  In what sense must they be intentional, for example?  And must the weak-willed agent thinks his action objectively worse than some alternative action open to him?  And must that alternative action actually be open to him?  The paper concludes by considering the condition that a clear case of weakness of will must be in certain sense non-procrastinatory and this turns out to be particularly difficult to satisfy.  Other explanations, ones that do not postulate weakness of will (though they may involve paradoxes of their own), always seem to be available.

This paper critically evaluates the argument that all government spending is, from the perspective of economic theory, simply consumption spending. The argument is questionable because it assumes that for investment to be meaningful, it must be directed toward consumer satisfaction, where “consumers” are a group mutually exclusive from government officials. Further, it assumes that government officials can be neither future- or consumer-
oriented in their behavior. Related to these points, the argument also contains terminology structured so as to rule out objections simply by definition. In addition, the consumption-theory of government spending also potentially incorporates hidden value judgments. Finally, the argument actually overlooks important facts about government production which would otherwise go unnoticed.

In this paper I claim that disgust has a logic. This logic does not let us differentiate aesthetic and ethical value judgements, and shows that there are cases in which they overlap. In order to show this, I will consider Aurel Kolnai’s phenomenological analysis of disgust.

This paper argues that doctors ought to make all things
considered value judgments about what is best for their
patients. It illustrates some of the shortcomings of the
model of doctor as fact-provider'. The fact-provider'
model fails to take account of the fact that practicing
medicine necessarily involves making value judgments;
that medical practice is a moral practice and requires
that doctors reflect on what ought to be done, and that
patients can make choices which fail to express their
autonomy and which are based on mistaken judgments
of value. If doctors are properly to respect patient
autonomy and to function as moral agents, they must
make evaluations of what their patients ought to do, all
things considered. This paper argues for 'rational,
non-interventional paternalism'. This is a practice in
which doctors form conceptions of what is best for their
patients and argue rationally with them. It differs from
old-style paternalism in that it is not committed to doing
what is best.

The paper aims to address the following two questions: what kind of discourse is that which attempt to found or defend the autonomy or the boundaries of a discipline? Why do such discourses tend to turn into normative, dogmatic-excommunicating discourses between disciplines, schools or scholars? I will argue that an adequate answer may be found if we conceive disciplines as dogmatics, where such discourses often take the form of a discourse on the foundation of a discipline, a foundation in the name of which the scholar speaks and with which he/she entertains an identity relationship. To this purpose I will re-examine the methodological discourses of (and debates between) Pareto, Croce and Einaudi on the demarcation issue between philosophy, economics and value-judgments as highly instructive to understand such issues.

Keywords: philosophy, economics, value-judgements, realism, nominalism, economist’s discourse, dogmatics, disciplinary boundaries

JEL Codes: A12, B31, B41, B59

(1) Urteile sind die einzigen Typen von Gegenständen, die Inhalt unserer Erkenntnisse sein können, und die einzigen, die Thesen von Argumentationen sein können. Epistemische Rationalität ist deshalb an Urteile gebunden: Ziel der epistemischen Rationalität ist u. a., daß wir möglichst nur an Urteile mit wahren Propositionen glauben. Handlungen können an dieser Rationalität nur teilhaben, wenn es spezielle Urteile (über Handlungen) gibt, an die zu glauben, die entsprechende Handlung aus anthropologischen Gründen nach sich zieht oder rationaliter nach sich ziehen sollte. Gibt es keine solchen Urteile, dann klafft eine Lücke zwischen Urteilen und Handeln, und das Handeln ist in einem gewissen Sinne nicht rationalisierbar, Ethiken sind praktisch irrelevant. Gibt es hingegen solche Urteile, d. h. ist die Lücke zu schließen, dann besteht Handlungsrationalität u. a. gerade darin, den Glauben an Urteile dieser Art epistemisch zu rationalisieren. (2) Ein großer Teil der metaethischen Arbeiten Hares ist (wenigstens implizit) dem Versuch gewidmet, die Lücke zwischen Urteil und Handeln zu schließen. (3) Seine Konzepte von 'Präskriptivität' sind Versuche, die Lücke zwischen Urteil und Handeln innerhalb der Bedeutung präskriptiver Sätze zu schließen u. a. durch die Verbindung von Urteilen mit Imperativen. Vier dieser Konzepte werden untersucht; keines von ihnen weist einen Weg, wie die Lücke geschlossen werden kann. (4) Gemäß einer entscheidungstheoretischen empirischen Handlungstheorie schließen bestimmte Werturteile die Lücke: Der Glaube an ein spezielles Optimalitätsurteil über Handlungsalternativen ist jeweils der eigentliche Handlungsauslöser. Hares bleibender Beitrag zur Schließung der Lücke zwischen Urteil und Handeln besteht dann in wichtigen Einzelergebnissen seiner Bedeutungsanalysen von Werturteilen: Supervenience von Werturteilen, ihre Beziehung zu Wählakten, Unterschied zwischen der Bedeutung von "gut" und Gütekriterien etc. (5) Diese Ergebnisse können zu einer - handlungstheoretisch begründeten - Definition von "x ist im Maße u gut für die Person y" vervollständigt werden, einer Definition, 1. mit der erklärt werden kann, wieso entsprechende Optimalitätsurteile handlungsmotivierend wirken können, und 2. die dennoch genügend epistemische Rationalisierungsmöglichkeiten offenläßt, die also nicht das Gute mit dem für gut Gehaltenen gleichsetzt.

This paper examines several problematic aspects of George
Reisman’s Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, specifically, five problems in the economics of natural resources. I argue first, that Reisman’s work lacks sufficient grounding in economic theory. Second, his exposition neglects important arguments in the environmental literature. Third, it avoids problems of uncertainty, leading to a faulty theory of economic development. Fourth, he does not sufficiently explain or criticize potential fallacies in the environmental movement. Fifth, the rhetoric Reisman deploys in his arguments confounds rather than supports his exposition.