The idea that the direction of our cognition should be towards the fundamental
still informs contemporary metaphysics. Sider (2009: 401), for example, writes:
Structure has an evaluative component. The goal of inquiry is not merely to believe many
true propositions and few false ones. It is to discern the structure of the world. An ideal
inquirer must think of the world in terms of its distinguished structure; she must carve
the world at its joints in her thinking and language. Employers of worse languages are
worse inquirers.
Note how many normative or evaluative concepts are expressed in this single
paragraph:goal of inquiry,ideal inquirer,must, andworse. Far from pinning down a
single evaluative component of the notion of structure, Sider invokes several, and it is
not clear which among them, if any, he takes to be most central.
My preference would be to focus on a notion that Sider does not explicitly invoke,
that ofcorrectness. This normative notion plays a central role in the meta-ethical
system of Franz Brentano, who uses it to provide a reductive account of intrinsic
value. According to Brentano (1969: 18, 25–6), something is intrinsically good if and
only if an act of love that takes that thing as its object is correct; something is
intrinsically bad if and only if an act of hate that takes that thing as its object is
correct; and one thing is intrinsically better than another just in case a preference for
thefirst over the second is correct. Do not let the terminology of love and hate
distract you: for Brentano, any pro-attitude directed towards an object is an act of
love and any con-attitude directed towards an object is an act of hate.^8
Here are some intuitive examples. The pleasure that I take in my older daughter’s
delight in learning how condensation works is a correct act of love. The pain that
I take in the physical pain experienced by the same daughter when she falls facefirst
into the sidewalk is a correct act of hate. Finally, my preference for knowledge over
ignorance is a correct preference.^9 For Brentano, a notion of correctness also provides
an account of truth: a belief is true if and only if it is correct.^10
The notion of correctness is sufficiently clear for Brentano’s accounts to be
intelligible and worth considering. Moreover, we can (and should) accept the
biconditionals linking correctness to intrinsic value and truth even if we deny
them the status of reductions. But we can go beyond Brentano as well. Brentano
As Witt (2003: 95) puts it,“what is prior in being turns out also to be what is better and more valuable,”and
to be clear this is no accident; for Witt (2003), Aristotle’s hierarchy of being is intrinsically normative.
(^8) For example, in Brentano (1973) examples of acts of love include instances of pleasure, of desire, and
even of preference. Moreover, Brentano (1973: 200) tells us thateveryemotion is“principally distinguished
by being one of love or of hatred. 9 ”
Note that Brentano (1969: 20–2) also holds that in each of these examples I not only have correct
emotions but also I experience them as being correct. It isself-evidentthat it is correct to prefer knowledge
to ignorance. 10
See Brentano (1969: 18). Note that one can accept that a belief is true if and only if it is correct as well
as further biconditionals, e.g., that a belief is true if and only if the object of the belief exists. Brentano (1969:
74 – 5) defends this as well.