Value theory

This article is about the generic concept of value. For its application in economics, see Theory of value (economics).

In ethics and the social sciences, value theory involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy, it is also known as ethics or axiology.

Traditionally, philosophical investigations in value theory have sought to understand the concept of "the good". Today, some work in value theory has trended more towards empirical sciences, recording what people do value and attempting to understand why they value it in the context of psychology, sociology, and economics.

In ecological economics, value theory is separated into two types: donor-type value and receiver-type value. Ecological economists tend to believe that 'real wealth' needs an accrual-determined value as a measure of what things were needed to make an item or generate a service.

In other fields, theories posit the importance of values as an analytical independent variable (including those put forward by Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, and Jürgen Habermas). Classical examples of sociological traditions which deny or downplay the question of values are institutionalism, historical materialism (including Marxism), behaviorism, pragmatic-oriented theories, postmodern philosophy and various Objectivist-oriented theories.

At the general level, there is a difference between moral and natural goods. Moral goods are those that have to do with the conduct of persons, usually leading to praise or blame. Natural goods, on the other hand, have to do with objects, not persons. For example, the statement "Mary is a good person" uses 'good' very differently than in the statement "That is good food".

Ethics is mainly focused on moral goods rather than natural goods, while economics has a concern in what is economically good for the society but not an individual person and is also interested in natural goods. However, both moral and natural goods are equally relevant to goodness and value theory, which is more general in scope.

Definition

Value theory is the systematic study of values. Also called axiology and theory of values, it is the branch of philosophy that examines which things are good and what it means for something to be good. It distinguishes different types of values and explores how they can be measured and compared. It also studies whether values are a fundamental aspect of reality and how they affect phenomena such as emotion, desire, decision, and action. Its topic is relevant to many human endeavors because values are guiding principles that underlie the political, economic, scientific, and personal spheres. Value theory analyzes and evaluates phenomena such as well-being, utility, beauty, human life, knowledge, wisdom, freedom, love, and justice.

The precise definition of value theory is disputed and some theorists rely on alternative characterizations. In a broad sense, value theory is a catch-all label that encompasses all philosophical disciplines studying evaluative or normative topics. According to this view, value theory is one of the main branches of philosophy and includes ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. A similar broad characterization sees value theory as a multidisciplinary area of inquiry that covers research from fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economics in addition to philosophy. In a narrow sense, value theory is a subdiscipline of ethics that is particularly relevant to the school of consequentialism since it determines how to assess the value of consequences.

The word axiology has its origin in the ancient Greek terms ἄξιος (axios, meaning 'worth' or 'value') and λόγος (logos, meaning 'study' or 'theory of'). Even though the roots of value theory reach back to the ancient period, this area of thought was only conceived as a distinct discipline in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the term axiology was coined. The terms value theory and axiology are usually used as synonyms but some philosophers distinguish between them. According to one characterization, axiology is a subfield of value theory that limits itself to theories about what things are valuable and how valuable they are. The term timology is an older and less common synonym.

Value

Main article: Value (ethics and social sciences)

Value is the worth, usefulness, or merit of something. Many evaluative terms are employed to talk about value, including good, best, great, and excellent as well as their negative counterparts, like bad and terrible. Some value terms, like good and bad, are pure evaluations in that they only express the value of something without any additional descriptive content. They are known as thin evaluative concepts. Thick evaluative concepts, like courageous and cruel, provide more information by expressing other qualities besides the evaluation, such as character traits. Values are often understood as degrees that cover positive and negative magnitudes corresponding to good and bad. The terms better and worse are used to compare degrees, but it is controversial whether this is possible in all cases.

Evaluative terms are sometimes distinguished from normative or deontic terms. Normative terms, like right, wrong, and obligation, prescribe actions or other states by expressing what ought to be done or what is required. Evaluative terms have a wider scope because they are not limited to what people can control or are responsible for. For example, involuntary events like digestion and earthquakes can have a positive or negative value even if they are not right or wrong in a strict sense. Despite the distinction, evaluative and normative concepts are closely related. For example, the value of the consequences of an action may affect whether this action is right or wrong.

Value theorists distinguish various types or categories of values. The different classifications overlap and are based on considerations like the source, beneficiary, and function of the value.

Intrinsic and instrumental

Main article: Instrumental and intrinsic value

A thing has intrinsic or final value if it is good in itself or good for its own sake. This means that it is good independent of external factors or outcomes. A thing has extrinsic or instrumental value if it is useful or leads to other good things. In other words, it is a means to bring about a desired end. For example, tools like microwaves or money have instrumental value thanks to the useful functions they perform. In some cases, the thing produced this way has itself instrumental value, like when using money to buy a microwave. This can result in a chain of instrumentally valuable things in which each link gets its value by causing the following link. Intrinsically valuable things stand at the endpoint of these chains and ground the value of all the links that come before them.

One way to distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental value relies on a thought experiment that imagines the valuable thing in isolation from everything else. In such a situation, purely instrumentally valuable things lose their value since they serve no purpose while purely intrinsically valuable things remain valuable. According to a common view, pleasure is one of the sources of intrinsic value. Other suggested sources include life, health, beauty, freedom, and knowledge.

Intrinsic and instrumental value are not exclusive categories. As a result, a thing can have both intrinsic and instrumental value if it is both good in itself while also leading to other good things. In a similar sense, a thing can have different instrumental values at the same time, both positive and negative ones. This is the case if some of its consequences are good while others are bad. The total instrumental value of a thing is the value balance of all its consequences.

Because instrumental value depends on other values, it is an open question whether it should be understood as a value in a strict sense. For example, the overall value of a chain of causes leading to an intrinsically valuable thing remains the same if instrumentally valuable links are added or removed without affecting the intrinsically valuable thing. The observation that the overall value does not change is sometimes used as an argument that the things added or removed do not have value.

Traditionally, value theorists have used the terms intrinsic value and final value interchangeably, just like the terms extrinsic value and instrumental value. This practice has been questioned in the 20th century based on the idea that they are similar but not identical concepts. According to this view, a thing has intrinsic value if the source of its value is an intrinsic property, meaning that the value does not depend on how the thing is related to other objects. Extrinsic value, by contrast, depends on external relations. This view sees instrumental value as one type of extrinsic value based on causal relations. At the same time, it allows that there are other types of non-instrumental extrinsic value. Final value is understood as what is valued for its own sake, independent of whether intrinsic or extrinsic properties are responsible.

Absolute and relative

Another distinction relies on the contrast between absolute and relative value. Absolute value, also called value simpliciter, is a form of unconditional value. A thing has relative value if its value is limited to certain considerations or viewpoints.

One form of relative value is restricted to the type of an entity, expressed in sentences like "That is a good knife" or "Jack is a good thief". This form is known as attributive goodness since the word "good" modifies the meaning of another term. To be attributively good as a certain type means to possess certain qualities characteristic of that type. For example, a good knife is sharp and a good thief has the skill of stealing without getting caught. Attributive goodness contrasts with predicative goodness. The sentence "Pleasure is good" is an example since the word good is used as a predicate to talk about the unqualified value of pleasure. Attributive and predicative goodness can accompany each other, but this is not always the case. For instance, being a good thief is not necessarily a good thing.

Another type of relative value restricts goodness to a specific person. Known as personal value, it expresses what benefits a particular person, promotes their welfare, or is in their interest. For example, a poem written by a child may have personal value for the parents even if the poem lacks value for others. Impersonal value, by contrast, is good in general without restriction to any specific person or viewpoint. Some philosophers, like G. E. Moore, reject the existence of personal values, holding that all values are impersonal. Others have proposed theories about the relation between personal and impersonal value. The agglomerative theory says that impersonal value is nothing but the sum of all personal values. Another view understands impersonal value as a specific type of personal value taken from the perspective of the universe as a whole.

Agent-relative value is sometimes contrasted with personal value as another person-specific limitation of the evaluative outlook. Agent-relative values affect moral considerations about what a person is responsible for or guilty of. For example, if Mei promises to pick Pedro up from the airport then an agent-relative value obligates Mei to drive to the airport. This obligation is in place even if it does not benefit Mei, in which case there is an agent-relative value without a personal value. In consequentialism, agent-relative values are often discussed in relation to ethical dilemmas. One dilemma revolves around the question of whether an individual should murder an innocent person if this prevents the murder of two innocent people by a different perpetrator. The agent-neutral perspective tends to affirm this idea since one murder is preferable to two. The agent-relative perspective tends to reject this conclusion, arguing that the initial murder should be avoided since it negatively impacts the agent-relative value of the individual.

Traditionally, most value theorists see absolute value as the main topic of value theory and focus their attention on this type. Nonetheless, some philosophers, like Peter Geach and Philippa Foot, have argued that the concept of absolute value by itself is meaningless and should be understood as one form of relative value.

Other distinctions

Other classifications of values have been proposed without a widely accepted main classification. Some focus on the types of entities that have value. They include distinct categories for entities like things, the environment, individuals, groups, and society. Another subdivision pays attention to the type of benefit involved and encompasses material, economic, moral, social, political, aesthetic, and religious values. Classifications by the beneficiary of the value distinguish between self- and other-oriented values.

A historically influential approach identifies three spheres of value: truth, goodness, and beauty. For example, the neo-Kantian philosopher Wilhelm Windelband characterizes them as the highest goals of consciousness, with thought aiming at truth, will aiming at goodness, and emotion aiming at beauty. A similar view, proposed by the Chinese philosopher Zhang Dainian, says that the value of truth belongs to knowledge, the value of goodness belongs to behavior, and the value of beauty belongs to art. This three-fold distinction also plays a central role in the philosophies of Franz Brentano and Jürgen Habermas. Other suggested types of values include objective, subjective, potential, actual, contingent, necessary, inherent, and constitutive values.

Ethics and axiology

Main article: Value (ethics and social sciences)

Intuitively, theories of value must be important to ethics. A number of useful distinctions have been made by philosophers in the treatment of value.

Pragmatism and contributory goodness

Further information: Pragmatic ethics

John Dewey (1859–1952) in his book Theory of Valuation, says goodness is the outcome of ethic valuation and a continuous balancing of "ends in view". An end in view is said to be an objective potentially adopted, which may be refined or rejected based on its consistency with other objectives or as a means to objectives already held.

Dewey's empiricist approach evinces absolute intrinsic value denial; i.e. not accepting intrinsic value as an inherent or enduring property of things. Instead, Dewey sees the appearance of intrinsic value as an illusory product of our continuous valuative activity as purposive beings. In addition to denying categorically that there is anything like intrinsic value, Dewey held the same position with regard to moral values: for Dewey, moral values are also based on a learning process, and are never intrinsic or absolute.

Another contribution of pragmatism to value theory is the idea of contributory goods with a contributory conditionality. These have the same qualities as the good thing, but need some emergent property of a whole state-of-affairs in order to be good. For example, salt is food on its own, but is far better as part of a prepared meal. In other words, such goods are only "good" when certain conditions are met. This is in contrast to other goods, which may be considered "good" in a wider variety of situations.

Kant: hypothetical and categorical goods

The thinking of Immanuel Kant greatly influenced moral philosophy. He thought of moral value as a unique and universally identifiable property, as an absolute value rather than a relative value. He showed that many practical goods are good only in states-of-affairs described by a sentence containing an "if" clause, e.g., in the sentence, "Sunshine is only good if you do not live in the desert." Further, the "if" clause often described the category in which the judgment was made (art, science, etc.). Kant described these as "hypothetical goods", and tried to find a "categorical" good that would operate across all categories of judgment without depending on an "if-then" clause.

An influential result of Kant's search was the idea of a good will being the only intrinsic good. Moreover, Kant saw a good will as acting in accordance with a moral command, the categorical imperative, "Act according to those maxims that you could will to be universal law", which should not be confused with the ethic of reciprocity or Golden Rule, e.g. Matthew 7:12. Whereas the golden rule states that "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself", Kant asks us to analyze whether an act can be performed simultaneously by everyone without exception. For example, murder cannot be performed simultaneously by everyone, one set of people would have to live and the other die. That disparity is an exception. The act cannot be performed without exception, therefore it fails the categorical imperative. Contrast this with the golden rule which is subjective to the individual. Following the logic of the golden rule, if I wanted someone to kill me, then it would be acceptable for me to kill others, because I would be doing to others what I would want done to me. Kant's categorical imperative aims to avoid this flaw. From this, and a few other axioms, Kant developed a moral system that would apply to any "praiseworthy person".

Kantian philosophers believe that any general definition of goodness must define goods that are categorical in the sense that Kant intended.

Sociology

Main article: Value (ethics and social sciences)

In sociology, value theory is concerned with personal values which are popularly held by a community, and how those values might change under particular conditions. Different groups of people may hold or prioritize different kinds of values influencing social behavior.

Methods of study range from questionnaire surveys to participant observation. Values can be socially attributed. What the community perceives as of paramount significance to them denotes or decipher their social attributes.

Economics

Main article: Theory of value (economics)

Economic analysis emphasizes goods sought in a market and tends to use the consumer's choices as evidence (revealed preference) that various products are of economic value. In this view, religious or political struggle over what "goods" are available in the marketplace is inevitable, and consensus on some core questions about body and society and ecosystems affected by the transaction, are outside the market's goods so long as they are unowned.

However, some natural goods seem to also be moral goods. For example, those things that are owned by a person may be said to be natural goods, but over which a particular individual(s) may have moral claims. So it is necessary to make another distinction: between moral and non-moral goods. A non-moral good is something that is desirable for someone or other; despite the name to the contrary, it may include moral goods. A moral good is anything which an actor is considered to be morally obligated to strive toward.

When discussing non-moral goods, one may make a useful distinction between inherently serviced and material goods in the marketplace (or its exchange value), versus perceived intrinsic and experiential goods to the buyer. A strict service economy model takes pains to distinguish between the goods and service guarantees to the market, and that of the service and experience to the consumer.

Sometimes, moral and natural goods can conflict. The value of natural "goods" is challenged by such issues as addiction. The issue of addiction also brings up the distinction between economic and moral goods, where an economic good is whatever stimulates economic growth. For instance, some claim that cigarettes are a "good" in the economic sense, as their production can employ tobacco growers and doctors who treat lung cancer. Many people would agree that cigarette smoking is not morally "good", nor naturally "good," but still recognize that it is economically good, which means, it has exchange value, even though it may have a negative public good or even be bad for a person's body (not the same as "bad for the person" necessarily – consider the issue of suicide).

In ecological economics, value theory is separated into two types: donor-type value and receiver-type value. Ecological economists tend to believe that 'real wealth' needs a donor-determined value as a measure of what things were needed to make an item or generate a service. An example of receiver-type value is 'market value', or 'willingness to pay', the principal method of accounting used in neo-classical economics. In contrast, both Marx's labour theory of value and the emergy concept are conceived as donor-type value. Emergy theorists believe that this conception of value has relevance to all of philosophy, economics, sociology and psychology as well as environmental science.

Silvio Gesell denied value theory in economics. He thought that value theory is useless and prevents economics from becoming science and that a currency administration guided by value theory is doomed to sterility and inactivity.

See also

• Aesthetics
• Anthropological theories of value
• Axiological ethics
• Baden School
• Cultural Institutions Studies
• Graded absolutism
• Illegalism
• Intuitionism
• Labor theory of value
• Law of value
• Logic
• Morality
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Normative science
• Practical philosophy
• Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality
• Rationality
• Rationality and power
• Social contract
• Summum bonum
• Thick concept
• Ultimate importance
• Value-added theory
• Value engineering

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Further reading

• Nicholas Rescher. 2010. Axiogenesis: An Essay in Metaphysical Optimalism. Lexington Books.