Railton's Argumentative Analysis

According to Peter Railton we should feel uneasy when fact/value distinction is similar to objectivity/subjectivity and reason/emotion. If we stop viewing fact and value as distinct the facts may be softened while the values may be hardened. Railton is concerned with generic/non-moral goodness or intrinsic value. The philosophical defense of fact/value distinction consists of the arguments from rational determinability, internalism, and the argument from “queer-ness.” Rational determinability are factual disputes that can be resolved by appealing to reason and experience, but facts are hard. Internalism and instrumentalism supports the fact and value distinction. Thinking of goodness can be similarly relative to “nutritiveness,” that all organisms require nutrition but do not utilize the same nutrients. There is no absolute nutrient, meaning that there is no such thing as something being nutritious for all organisms, there is only relational nutritiveness. Railton also believes that someone being good involves what he or she would want for themselves while being free of “cognitive error or lapses of instrumental rationality.” The argument from queerness (which concerns the nature of reality), provides that human motivational system and situations support counterfactuals to characterize intrinsic goodness. Determinates are factors that influence desires we form and how such desires will evolve In response to many changes including one’s own belief, however an actual individual’s beliefs will fall short of expressing full information. Naturalness consists facts about a given person’s “psychology, physiology, and circumstances that are reduction basis” of his or her dispositions to desire. One’s own good can play a role in evolution in their own behavior even without forming an accurate idea of