The following two thoughts are prompted by reading the first chapter of Pettit’s Republican Freedom, Talisse’s criticism of Pettit (“Impunity and Domination: A Puzzle for Republicanism”), and (the first two sections of) an unpublished essay by Derek Bowman on Pettit’s ideas about republican freedom and non-domination (“The Modality of (Republican) Freedom: Non-Domination As Effective Rights Recognition”). And by discussing Pettit’s ideas of domination and republican freedom with Derek.

(1) I take republican-style freedom to be something like this (and thus probably not what Pettit takes it to be on a consistent basis): 

the social condition of custom and law providing reliable assurance that one will not be dominated by private parties or by the government (or by other inescapable customary or institutional elements in society). 

This is not merely the absence of domination (which might occur by happenstance or through some different means). It is not clear to me that Pettit’s account has it that republican freedom is specifically the (desirable) assurance condition not just the (desirable) basal condition. But I think we should go with the assurance condition (and I think Pettit does sometimes).

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Is a kind of value associated specifically with there being reason (not shared with others) for one to desire/value and promote/secure one’s well-being (or particular elements of it)? If so, how should we characterize it?

One natural suggestion is this: X’s well-being is valuable to X. The value here would be agent-relative, as distinct from value simpliciter (or agent-neutral value).

Against this suggestion, it is pointed out that the value language we generally use here is the language of good-for. For example, there is reason (not shared by others) for X to secure that-P because that-P is good for X. And we don’t generally use the language of valuable-to or valuable-relative-to. Of course, this does not preclude the concept (and property) of agent-relative value being required for philosophical theory, for descriptive and explanatory virtue or adequacy. The point, I think, is meant to set up a kind of burden of proof.

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Pleasure itself is good. In particular, (a) if X has a pleasant or enjoyable experience, this is inherently good for X in that it is part of (not just something that promotes) X’s well-being and (b) X’s pleasant or enjoyable experience is inherently or non-instrumentally good or valuable to X (the experience is non-instrumentally agent-relatively valuable). Though we do not typically make the distinction between [a] and [b] clear, it can be teased out from a competent language-user.

According to my suggested analysis of O[that P] – see my immediately previous post, “Person-Directed Anger…” – it is appropriate for one to have negative, person-directed attitudes toward a person (i) failing to have positive attitudes toward that-P obtaining (or failing to have negative attitudes toward P not obtaining).

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If person A puts in a good, smart effort in attempting some task, we think something like this: it “should be the case” that she succeeds. Similarly, if B works harder and smarter than A at the same type of task, then it “should be the case” that B’s efforts yield more success than A’s efforts. (In this case, we might also think that it is fair that B have more success than A – and that it would be unfair if it went the other way around.)

What is ‘should be the case’ getting at in these cases? We might analyze the feature here in terms of appropriate response in attitude.

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According to me: for an action to be a wronging of a person is for it to be an action worthy of victim resentment. And similarly: for an action (at least usually a wronging of a person) to be morally wrong is for it to be an action worthy of observer indignation. So I take wronging and moral wrongness to be (non-obviously) fitting-attitude-type evaluative properties, similar to events being scary, jokes being funny, people being admirable.

Here is a potential problem for this idea: excuses can render wrong actions non-blameworthy (and so, it would seem, non-indignation-worthy) without their ceasing to be wrong. Boom. So much for my pretty little idea!

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In a previous post, I provided an account of society S being required to be some way (or do some particular thing) W entirely in terms of more familiar requirements that participants (individuals, but perhaps also collectives that count as agents) do enough or do their part to help S realize W. In the comments, I noted that David Estlund provides something of a different account, in terms of: (a) participants being required to do their part to help S realize W, but only if everyone else does their part and (b) it being the case that S ought to be W (this being the evaluative use of ‘ought’, distinct from S being required to be W). I voiced some general sympathy with the need to include something like [b], while preferring my imperfect but unconditional agential requirements (that might well entail Estlund’s perfect but conditional agential requirements).

Here is a sketch of what I think is a better analysis: for S to be required to be W = (i) S failing to be W being indignation-worthy and because of this (ii) all participants being required to do something (or enough or their part) to help S be W.

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