156 Andrew Light
some independently specifi ed end—then I regard the person with whom I have the relationship as
capable of making additional claims on me, beyond those people in general can make. For to attach
non-instrumental value to my relationship with a particular person just is, in part, to see that person
as a source of special claims in virtue of the relationship between us. (Scheffl er 1997: 195–196)
On this view, relationships among persons can have value in some cases not because of
any particular obligations that they incur, but because of the frame of action that they
provide for interactions among persons. As Scheffl er puts it, relationships can be “pre-
sumptively decisive reasons for action.” While such reasons can be overridden they are
suffi cient conditions upon which you or I may act in many cases.
What I fi nd most attractive about Scheffl er’s argument is that it conforms to our every-
day moral intuitions about relationships—for example, it does not reduce them to explicitly
voluntary events—and it makes sense of why we fi nd some relationships morally compel-
ling in a noninstrumental way. I call relationships that we fi nd valuable in and of them-
selves in this way “normative relationships.” Our actions and attitudes with respect to
these relationships can be better or worse. The fact that we are in these kinds of relation-
ships can provide better and worse reasons for action.
One of the interesting things about the relationships that we value intrinsically, though,
is that most of them are symbolized in objects—wedding rings, mementos, gifts, and so
forth. For this reason then, at a minimum, we can do harm, or more accurately, exhibit a
kind of vice, in our treatment of objects connected to those particular kinds of relation-
ships. Take for example the watch I am wearing as I write this chapter. This watch was
given to me several years ago by my former partner’s parents in Jerusalem as a way of
welcoming me into their family. I cherish the occasion even though I am no longer in a
relationship of the same kind with her or her parents. The watch, however, is a meaningful
symbol of that event and that set of relationships. If someone were to try to take this watch
from me and smash it I would have a presumptively decisive reason for stopping that
person that was not limited to its value as mere property but would also include its value
as a thing standing for a particular normative relationship. So, too, if I were to smash this
watch myself with a hammer for no reason, I would be doing something wrong in some
sense relative to the intrinsic value of that set of relationships as well. To tease out my
intuitions on why it would be wrong to smash the watch I need not appeal to any obliga-
tion to the thing itself but only claim that I have presumptively decisive reasons to respect
the watch because to do otherwise does harm to a connection of value involving my rela-
tionships with others in which the watch plays some role. Again it may help to think of
this in terms of vice. I exhibit a kind of vice when I smash the watch. This is a minor vice
but it is a vice nonetheless. My character is lacking if I do not seem to minimally care
about this object when it is appropriate for me to do so.
Does this example mean that my character is necessarily fl awed if I smash the watch?
No. Under some circumstances it might even be appropriate to destroy an object from a