Fitting-Attitude Analysis

‘Fitting-Attitude Analysis’ introduces fitting-attitude (FA) analysis. This pattern of value analysis has received considerable attention over the past two decades, and various iterations of it have been proposed and discussed. After having outlined some of the advantages of FA analysis, it is made clear why we should be neither too confident about its success nor too worried about the challenges it faces. A large part of the chapter deals with different challenges to FA analysis, including a recent attempt (which goes back to Franz Brentano) to handle the so-called ‘wrong kind of reason’ problem. The chapter also considers an issue that has received less attention in the literature, which again takes us back to Brentano. G. E. Moore argued that Brentano was wrong in his analysis of what it is for something to be more valuable than something else is. It is argued that Moore was wrong on this matter. In this connection, a way of understanding the strength and weight of reasons is proposed. The proposal is hard to avoid if the FA advocate understands the notion of reason to be primitive in his analysis. The chapter ends by discussing some recent challenges to FA analysis that arise in the wake of the insight that reasons are agency-dependent, but values are not. Once we modify the standard FA analysis in a certain way, these challenges turn out to be less serious than they appear.

Consumer’s Perception towards Online Shopping- A Special Reference to Chennai

Over the last decade the online shopping is getting more popular across the world. The online consumers became online shoppers because of its convenient and time savings. It is very easy for them to buy the products by simply sitting at a home. Online shopping avoid the waiting time in a shop and make a search for a particular products in a shop. This research work is an attempt to explore the factors that may affect the attitude of consumers in Chennai towards online shopping. The results revealed four important factors viz. reason, problem, satisfaction and technology to be deciding factors of online shopping behaviour of consumers in Chennai.

Too Much Value?

According to the Buck-Passing Account (BPA), for X to be good is for there to be reasons for everyone to have pro-attitudes in response to X. Suppose that a demon will punish everyone if they do not admire it. There are reasons for everyone to admire the demon, so BPA entails that it is good, but it is not good. So, BPA produces too much value. This chapter argues that this problem, often dubbed the wrong kind of reason problem, can be dissolved because there are no reasons to admire the demon. But, this chapter argues, even if there are reasons to admire the demon this does not show that BPA should be rejected, but only that it should be revised to hold that the reasons for pro-attitudes in BPA are reasons to have pro-attitudes that are not provided or enabled by facts about the additional consequences of having those pro-attitudes.

The Normative and the Evaluative

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good is just for there to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to the buck-passing account, for pleasure to be good is just for there to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. And for liberty and equality to be values is just for there to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. There has been extensive discussion of some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces such as the wrong kind of reason problem. But there has been little discussion of why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. This book provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. It argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. It argues that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, are uninformative, and are at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. And it extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties, such as fittingness and ought, in terms of reasons.

How did you solve it? – Teachers’ approaches to guiding mathematics problem solving

This case study focuses on teachers’ actions during problem-solving lessons. The aim of this study was to find out how teachers guide students during mathematics problem-solving lessons: What kinds of questions do teachers ask? How do students arrive at solutions to problems? The dataset contained videotaped fourth-grade math lessons in which students solved a mathematical problem. The research reveals that teachers can guide students in numerous ways and possibly in ways that prevent students from searching for their own solution strategies. For this reason, problem-solving exercises alone are not sufficient for teaching students problem solving, as teachers must also be instructed in how to properly guide students. In the conclusion section, we discuss the types of questions that enable teachers to promote active learning in students, which should be the goal of instruction according to the constructive learning theory.

Meta-axiological buck-passing account of value

In this paper we consider an incomplete T. M. Scanlon?s meta-axiological project, analysis of the relationship between values and reasons which he referred to as the ?buckpassing account of value?. We will try to show the necessity of distinguishing between the ?broader? and ?narrower? buck-passing conception of value, a difference that critics of the conception usually ignored. This will also show that the objection which has been defined as the ?wrong kind of reason problem? is unjustifiably expanded to the conception as a whole.

Wrong Kind of Reasons and Consequences

In a recent issue of Utilitas Gerald Lang provided an appealing new solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem for the buck-passing account of value. In subsequent issues Jonas Olson and John Brunero have provided objections to Lang's solution. I argue that Brunero's objection is not a problem for Lang's solution, and that a revised version of Lang's solution avoids Olson's objections. I conclude that we can solve the Wrong Kind of Reason problem, and that the wrong kind of reasons for pro-attitudes are reasons that would not still be reasons for pro-attitudes if it were not for the additional consequences of having those pro-attitudes.

The Right Version of ‘the Right Kind of Solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem’

In a recent article in Utilitas, Gerald Lang suggests a solution to the so-called ‘wrong kind of reason problem’ (WKR problem) for the buck-passing account of value. In two separate replies to Lang, Jonas Olson and John Brunero, respectively, point out serious problems with Lang's suggestion, and at least Olson concludes that the solution Lang opts for is of the wrong kind for solving the WKR problem. I argue that while both Olson and Brunero have indeed identified considerable flaws in Lang's suggestion for a solution to the WKR problem, they have not provided sufficient grounds for dismissing the kind of solution that Lang proposes. I show how a version of this kind of solution can be formulated so as to avoid both Olson's and Brunero's objections. I also raise some worries concerning an alternative solution to the WKR problem suggested by Sven Danielsson and Jonas Olson.