Beyond wrong reasons

the buck-passing account of value

Ulrike Heuer

pp. 166-184

in: Michael Brady (ed), New waves in metaethics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Abstract

The buck-passing account of value (BPA) is very fertile ground, which has given rise to a number of interpretations and controversies. It has originally been proposed by T.M. Scanlon as an analysis of value: according to it, being good "is not a property that itself provides a reason to respond to a thing in certain ways. Rather, to be good or valuable is to have other properties that constitute such reasons."¹ And also: "being valuable is not a property that provides us with reasons. Rather, to call something valuable is to say that it has other properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with regard to it."²