Good For Its Own Sake

Am 11.12. kommt mit Stephen Finlay von der University of Southern California eine Größe seines Fachs an die Uni Graz. Er wird dabei im Rahmen des Philosophischen Forums um 14 Uhr einen Vortrag mit dem Titel "Good For Its Own Sake" halten.

Abstract: I will argue, on the basis of both linguistic and philosophical considerations, that there is no ordinary concept of a substantive property of final goodness. Thought and talk about what is "good for its own sake" employs a broadly relational, instrumental sense of 'good'. Three kinds of support for this claim will be offered: (i) a compositional analysis of the expression 'good for its own sake', (ii) otherwise anomalous usage data about the prevalence of 'good for its own sake' versus 'bad/better/best for its own sake', and (iii) its ability to explain several otherwise mysterious platitudes about final value, including (a) that it is an intrinsic property, (b) that it is possessed/lacked by metaphysical necessity, (c) that claims about it are synthetic apriori, and (d) that we desire that which has it for its own sake.