Mcdowell’s Moral Realism and the Secondary Quality Analogy

Consider a difficulty common to various functional accounts of value concepts: the fact that evil objects, persons, and practices can all be described as functional from at least some practical perspectives. The good robber, the good instruments of torture, and the good bombing mission are familiar examples. The solution is presumably familiar as well. What allows the possibility of calling someone a good robber is the possibility of looking at the qualities possessed by the robber from a practical perspective in which certain ends are valued, in this case, the end of successful thieving. From the standpoint of one interested in theft, or at least hypothetically contemplating it, what might appear otherwise to be a deficiency in an agent’s function — she is deficient, say, with respect to the legal value of respect for the property rights of others — will appear to be a successfully achieved function — she is actually quite remarkable at cracking safes. This indicates that the practical standpoint is not rigidly fixed at some particular ‘level’ of evaluation. How do we deal with examples such as the good robber? Presumably by evaluating the practical standpoint from which robbers may appear ‘good’ in light of some further practical standpoint within which the apparent actuality will appear deficient. While Smith may be a good thief, she is unlikely to appear to be a good citizen. Thus, if we view the virtues of citizenry as of superior importance to the virtues of safecracking, Smith’s robberly virtues will be dimly evaluated. But why view the virtues of citizenry as ultimate? Cannot they too be called into question? If so, we are faced with a further difficulty: that of specifying the nature of the ultimately judicative practical standpoint. I believe that a similar difficulty arises in regards to recent attempts to treat value properties as analogous to secondary qualities. The problem is present, for example, in John McDowell’s recognition of a disanalogy which