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Pain for Objectivists: The Case of Matters of Mere Taste

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Abstract

Can we adequately account for our reasons of mere taste without holding that our desires ground such reasons? Recently, Scanlon and Parfit have argued that we can, pointing to pleasure and pain as the grounds of such reasons. In this paper I take issue with each of their accounts. I conclude that we do not yet have a plausible rival to a desire-based understanding of the grounds of such reasons.

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Correspondence to David Sobel.

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Sobel, D. Pain for Objectivists: The Case of Matters of Mere Taste. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 8, 437–457 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-005-8839-z

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