Introduction

Abstract

Abstract This chapter introduces the buck-passing account of value and explains the structure of this book in which the account is motivated, defended, and extended. The buck-passing account analyses value in terms of reasons for pro-attitudes. This chapter explains the notion of a reason for a pro-attitude and its component parts, as well as the types of goodness and value that the buck-passing account is an account of. It then sketches several motivations for accepting the buck-passing account rather than its two competitors: the value-first account of reasons for pro-attitudes and the no-priority view. This chapter further clarifies how various distinctions in value can be made according to the buck-passing account and explores whether the buck-passing account is a metaphysical or conceptual thesis. This chapter maps out the structure of the first two parts of the book and explains how the buck-passing account will be extended to provide a reasons-first account of morality, fittingness, ought, and all of practical normativity in the third part of the book.