The Visibility of Value

This paper gives an extended argument for the conclusion that values are visible properties in the world we inhabit (including nature) and are not entirely derivable from states of mind such as our desires and "moral sentiments." The argument thus repudiates as a superstition of modernity the widespread assumption that the concept of "nature" is to be equated without remainder with "what the natural sciences study." The paper also gives a brief constructive account of what implications all this has for the relation between desires, values, and emotions.