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51 J. Value Inquiry 1 (2017)

handle is hein.journals/jrnlvi51 and id is 1 raw text is: J Value Inquiry (2017) 51:1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10790-016-9550-0 CrossMark An Expanded Conception of Sentimental Value Rochelle DuFord1 Published online: 2 March 2016 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Despite the fact that sentimental value is one of the most ordinary experiences of valuation in many individuals' lives, little work has been done to understand first, the origin of such value, and second, what sorts of normative claims this value makes on individuals. Although most humans have experiences of sentimental value as part of their lives, value theoretic accounts of it are nearly absent from the literature. Only two such accounts can be found.1 While both accounts differ as to what the theoretical categorization of such value is, they agree that sentimentally valuable objects: 1) relate us to ourselves in the past through memory, 2) the attachment individuals have to these objects is of an emotional sort, 3) when we encounter these objects they are the proximate cause of emotions in the present based on their connection to a past event of importance to us. I dispute the claim that objects of sentimental value must be related to ourselves or to some important event in the past to which we have a personal connection. I argue that there is an impersonal sense in which objects can be sentimentally valuable. From this impersonal sense in which objects may be sentimentally valuable, I claim that the understanding of this sort of value as either solely instrumentally valuable or as conditionally valuable (conditional upon our choosing it) are not adequate to capture sentimental value. I begin by discussing previous accounts of sentimental value and their theoretical deficiencies. I argue that though a rational justification procedure for sentimental value is possible, it is also unable to provide sufficient guidance in identifying Guy Fletcher, Sentimental Value, The Journal of Value Inquiry 43 (2009): 55-65; Anthony Hatzimoysis, Sentimental Value, The Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003): 373-379. ® Rochelle DuFord rhduford@gmail.com Department of Philosophy, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY, USA I Springer

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