Abstract: Focuses on one kind of value: prudential values, i.e. the features that make an individual life good for the person living it, the ends of life, the quality of life. There are two main models in philosophy for prudential value judgements: the taste model (valuable because desired) and the perception model (desired because seen to be valuable). The chapter criticizes David Hume's version of the taste model, concluding that things are valuable only if they are subsumable under some general human interest. The best account of prudential values gives priority neither to value nor to desire; when developed, it ends up with a list of values that make any characteristic human life good. The chapter ends by questioning two key dualisms in ethics: reason/desire and objective/subjective.

Keywords: ends of life, ethical objectivism, ethical subjectivism, Hume, practical reason, prudential value, quality of life, values,