Ideal Responder Theory

So here is a view about a certain kind of value -- say the kind that pleasure appears to track: what it is to be valuable in the relevant way is for it to be true that an ideal person would take a certain stance toward it. Call theories along these lines Ideal Responder Theories. One is inclined to describe the stance of the ideal person as being pleased by or as approving.

Note first that this is not a quasi-realist view: if such Ideal Responder Theory is true, then my pleasures are up for evaluation as true or false (fact-matching or not). I need only ask: does my pleasure respond to a feature of things to which an ideal responder would respond with the value-conferring response.

Note two things:

1) This account of the value could not be meant to capture the conception of value embodied in the felt character of pleasure. The reason is simple: pleasure is a conceptually undemanding state. If ideal responder theories require that our representing something as valuable in the relevant way involves possessing the concepts in terms of which the account is given, then they require too much of pleasure. I guess this is probably an obvious point. It is not meant as a criticism, but rather as a qualification on the content of the theories.

2) The temptation to describe the response of the ideal responder as approving or being pleased by should probably be resisted. The ideal responder cannot, if the account is to avoid circularity, respond to the state of affairs in question with a state like our own. That is, his response cannot represent the thing as possessing a value that warrants pleasure independent of his response. [I need an argument here, I know.] This raises the Interesting Question: what kind of response on the part of an ideal responder confers value?