Value theory

Value theory, also called ''axiology'', studies the nature, sources, and types of values. It is a branch of philosophy and an interdisciplinary field closely associated with social sciences such as economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.

Value is the worth of something, usually understood as covering both positive and negative degrees corresponding to the terms ''good'' and ''bad''. Values influence many human endeavors related to emotion, decision-making, and action. Value theorists distinguish various types of values, like the contrast between intrinsic and instrumental value. An entity has intrinsic value if it is good in itself, independent of external factors. An entity has instrumental value if it is useful as a means leading to other good things. Other classifications focus on the type of benefit, including economic, moral, political, aesthetic, and religious values. Further categorizations distinguish absolute values from values that are relative to something else.

Diverse schools of thought debate the nature and origins of values. Value realists state that values exist as objective features of reality. Anti-realists reject this, with some seeing values as subjective human creations and others viewing value statements as meaningless. Regarding the sources of value, hedonists argue that only pleasure has intrinsic value, whereas desire theorists discuss desires as the ultimate source of value. Perfectionism, another approach, emphasizes the cultivation of characteristic human abilities. Value pluralism identifies diverse sources of intrinsic value, raising the issue of whether values belonging to different types are comparable. Value theorists employ various methods of inquiry, ranging from reliance on intuitions and thought experiments to the analysis of language, description of first-person experience, observation of behavior, and surveys.

Value theory is related to various fields. Ethics focuses primarily on normative concepts of right behavior, whereas value theory explores evaluative concepts about what is good. In economics, theories of value are frameworks to assess and explain the economic value of commodities. Sociology and anthropology examine values as aspects of societies and cultures, reflecting dominant preferences and beliefs. In psychology, values are typically understood as abstract motivational goals that shape an individual's personality. The roots of value theory lie in antiquity as reflections on the highest good that humans should pursue. Diverse traditions contributed to this area of thought during the medieval and early modern periods, but it was only established as a distinct discipline in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Definition

Value theory, also known as ''axiology'' and ''theory of values'', is the systematic study of values. As a branch of philosophy, it 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. This field also studies whether values are a fundamental aspect of reality and how they influence phenomena such as emotion, desire, decision, and action. Value theory is relevant to many human endeavors because values are guiding principles that underlie the political, economic, scientific, and personal spheres. It 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 debated 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 and 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 integrates research from fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economics alongside 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 (, meaning or ) and (, meaning or ). 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 which things are valuable and how valuable they are. The term ''timology'' is an older and less common synonym.

Value

Value is the worth, usefulness, or merit of something. Value theorists examine the expressions used to describe and compare values, called ''evaluative terms''. They are further interested in the types or categories of values. The proposed classifications overlap and are based on factors like the source, beneficiary, and function of the value.

Evaluative terms

Values are expressed through evaluative terms. For example, the words ''good'', ''best'', ''great'', and ''excellent'' convey positive values, whereas words like ''bad'' and ''terrible'' indicate negative values. Value theorists distinguish between thin and thick evaluative terms. Thin evaluative terms, like ''good'' and ''bad'', express pure evaluations without any additional descriptive content. They contrast with thick evaluative terms, like '' courageous'' and '' cruel'', which provide more information by expressing other qualities, such as character traits, in addition to the evaluation. Values are often understood as degrees that cover positive and negative magnitudes corresponding to good and bad. The term ''value'' is sometimes restricted to positive degrees to contrast with the term ''disvalue'' for negative degrees. The words ''better'' and ''worse'' are used to compare degrees, but it is controversial whether a quantitative comparison is always possible. Evaluation is the assessment or measurement of value, often employed to compare the benefits of different options to find the most advantageous choice.

Evaluative terms are sometimes distinguished from normative or deontic terms. Normative or deontic 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 instance, 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 influence its normative statuswhether the action is right or wrong.

Types

Intrinsic and instrumental

A thing has intrinsic or final value if it is good in itself or good for its own sake, independent of external factors or outcomes. A thing has extrinsic or instrumental value if it is useful or leads to other good things, serving as a means to bring about a desirable end. For example, tools like microwaves or money have instrumental value due 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 preceding links.

One suggestion to distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental value, proposed by G. E. Moore, 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 desire satisfaction, virtue, 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 external causal relations. At the same time, it allows that there are other types of non-instrumental extrinsic value that result from external non-causal relations. 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 '', is a form of unconditional value. A thing has relative value if its value is relative to other things or 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 qualities characteristic of that type. For instance, 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 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 committing it.

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 categorizations of values have been proposed following diverse classification principles without a single approach widely accepted by all theorists. Some focus on the types of entities that have value. They include distinct categories for entities like individuals, groups, society, the environment, and inert things. 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.

Schools of thought

Realism and anti-realism

Value realism is the view that values have mind-independent existence. This means that objective facts determine what has value, irrespective of subjective beliefs and preferences. According to this view, the evaluative statement "That act is bad" is as objectively true or false as the empirical statement "That act causes distress".

Realists often analyze values as properties of valuable things. For example, stating that kindness is good asserts that kindness possesses the property of goodness. Value realists disagree about what type of property is involved. Naturalists say that value is a natural property. Natural properties, like size and shape, can be known through empirical observation and are studied by the natural sciences. Non-naturalists reject this view but agree that values are real. They say that values differ significantly from empirical properties and belong to another domain of reality. According to one view, they are known through rational or emotional intuition rather than empirical observation.

Another disagreement among realists is about whether the entity carrying the value is a concrete individual or a state of affairs. For instance, the name "Bill" refers to an individual while the sentence "Bill is pleased" refers to a state of affairs, which combines the individual "Bill" with the property "pleased". Some value theorists hold that the value is a property directly of Bill while others contend that it is a property of the state of affairs that Bill is pleased. This distinction affects various disputes in value theory. In some cases, a value is intrinsic according to one view and extrinsic according to the other.

Value realism contrasts with anti-realism, which comes in various forms. In its strongest version, anti-realism rejects the existence of values in any form, claiming that value statements are meaningless. There are various intermediate views between this position and realism. Some anti-realists accept that value claims have meaning but deny that they have a truth value, a position known as ''non-cognitivism''. For example, emotivists say that value claims express emotional attitudes, similar to how exclamations like "Yay!" or "Boo!" express emotions rather than stating facts.

Cognitivists contend that value statements have a truth value, meaning that sentences like "knowledge is intrinsically good" are either true or false. Following this view, error theorists defend anti-realism by stating that all value statements are false because there are no values. Another view accepts the existence of values but denies that they are mind-independent. According to this view, the mental states of individuals determine whether an object has value, for instance, because individuals desire it. A similar view is defended by existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, who argued that values are human creations that endow the world with meaning. Subjectivist theories say that values are relative to each subject, whereas more objectivist outlooks hold that values depend on mind in general rather than on the individual mind.

A different position accepts that values are mind-independent but holds that they are reducible to other facts, meaning that they are not a fundamental part of reality. One form of reductionism maintains that a thing is good if it is fitting to favor this thing, regardless of whether people actually favor it, a position known as the ''fitting-attitude theory of value''. The buck-passing account, a closely related reductive view, argues that a thing is valuable if people have reasons to treat the thing in certain ways. These reasons come from other features of the valuable thing. According to some views, reductionism is a form of realism, but the strongest form of realism says that value is a fundamental part of reality and cannot be reduced to other aspects.

Sources of value

Various theories about the sources of value have been proposed. They aim to clarify what kinds of things are intrinsically good. The historically influential theory of hedonism states that how people feel is the only source of value. More specifically, it says that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain is the only intrinsic evil. According to this view, everything else only has instrumental value to the extent that it leads to pleasure or pain, including knowledge, health, and justice. Hedonists usually understand the term ''pleasure'' in a broad sense that covers all kinds of enjoyable experiences, including bodily pleasures of food and sex as well as more intellectual or abstract pleasures, like the joy of reading a book or happiness about a friend's promotion. Pleasurable experiences come in degrees, and hedonists usually associate their intensity and duration with the magnitude of value they have.

Many hedonists identify pleasure and pain as symmetric opposites, meaning that the value of pleasure balances out the disvalue of pain if they have the same intensity. However, some hedonists reject this symmetry and give more weight to avoiding pain than to experiencing pleasure. Although it is widely accepted that pleasure is valuable, the hedonist claim that it is the only source of value is controversial. Welfarism, a closely related theory, understands well-being as the only source of value. Well-being is what is ultimately good for a person, which can include other aspects besides pleasure, such as health, personal growth, meaningful relationships, and a sense of purpose in life.

Desire theories offer a slightly different account, stating that desire satisfaction is the only source of value. This theory overlaps with hedonism because many people desire pleasure and because desire satisfaction is often accompanied by pleasure. Nonetheless, there are important differences: people desire a variety of other things as well, like knowledge, achievement, and respect; additionally, desire satisfaction may not always result in pleasure. Some desire theorists hold that value is a property of desire satisfaction itself, while others say that it is a property of the objects that satisfy a desire. One debate in desire theory concerns whether every desire is a source of value. For example, if a person has a false belief that money makes them happy, it is questionable whether the satisfaction of their desire for money is a source of value. To address this consideration, some desire theorists say that a desire can only provide value if a fully informed and rational person would have it, thereby excluding misguided desires from being a source of value.

Perfectionism identifies the realization of human nature and the cultivation of characteristic human abilities as the source of intrinsic goodness. It covers capacities and character traits belonging to the bodily, emotional, volitional, cognitive, social, artistic, and religious fields. Perfectionists disagree about which human excellences are the most important. Many are pluralistic in recognizing a diverse array of human excellences, such as knowledge, creativity, health, beauty, free agency, and moral virtues like benevolence and courage. According to one suggestion, there are two main fields of human goods: theoretical abilities responsible for understanding the world and practical abilities responsible for interacting with it. Some perfectionists provide an ideal characterization of human nature as the goal of human flourishing, holding that human excellences are those aspects that promote the realization of this goal. This view is exemplified in Aristotle's focus on rationality as the nature and ideal state of human beings. Non-humanistic versions extend perfectionism to the natural world in general, arguing that excellence as a source of intrinsic value is not limited to the human realm.

Monism and pluralism

Monist theories of value assert that there is only a single source of intrinsic value. They agree that various things have value but maintain that all fundamentally good things belong to the same type. For example, hedonists hold that nothing but pleasure has intrinsic value, while desire theorists argue that desire satisfaction is the only source of fundamental goodness. Pluralists reject this view, contending that a simple single-value system is too crude to capture the complexity of the sphere of values. They say that diverse sources of value exist independently of one another, each contributing to the overall value of the world.

One motivation for value pluralism is the observation that people value diverse types of things, including happiness, friendship, success, and knowledge. This diversity becomes particularly prominent when people face difficult decisions between competing values, such as choosing between friendship and career success. In such cases, value pluralists can argue that the different items have different types of values. Since monists accept only one source of intrinsic value, they may provide a different explanation by proposing that some of the valuable items only have instrumental value but lack intrinsic value.

Pluralists have proposed various accounts of how their view affects practical decisions. Rational decisions often rely on value comparisons to determine which course of action should be pursued. Some pluralists discuss a hierarchy of values reflecting the relative importance and weight of different value types to help people promote higher values when faced with difficult choices. For example, philosopher Max Scheler ranks values based on how enduring and fulfilling they are into the levels of pleasure, utility, vitality, culture, and holiness. He asserts that people should not promote lower values, like pleasure, if this comes at the expense of higher values.

Radical pluralists reject this approach, putting more emphasis on diversity by holding that different types of values are not comparable with each other. This means that each value type is unique, making it impossible to determine which one is superior. Some value theorists use radical pluralism to argue that value conflicts are inevitable, that the gain of one value cannot always compensate for the loss of another, and that some ethical dilemmas are irresolvable. For example, philosopher Isaiah Berlin applied this idea to the values of liberty and equality, arguing that a gain in one cannot make up for a loss in the other. Similarly, philosopher Joseph Raz said that it is often impossible to compare the values of career paths, like when choosing between becoming a lawyer or a clarinetist. The terms ''incomparability'' and ''incommensurability'' are often used as synonyms in this context. However, philosophers like Ruth Chang distinguish them. According to this view, incommensurability means that there is no common measure to quantify values of different types. Incommensurable values may or may not be comparable. If they are, it is possible to say that one value is better than another, but it is not possible to quantify how much better it is.

Others

Several controversies surround the question of how the intrinsic value of a whole is determined by the intrinsic values of its parts. According to the additivity principle, the intrinsic value of a whole is simply the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts. For example, if a virtuous person becomes happy then the intrinsic value of the happiness is simply added to the intrinsic value of the virtue, thereby increasing the overall value.

Various counterexamples to the additivity principle have been proposed, suggesting that the relation between parts and wholes is more complex. For instance, Immanuel Kant argued that if a vicious person becomes happy, this happiness, though good in itself, does not increase the overall value. On the contrary, it makes things worse, according to Kant, since viciousness should not be rewarded with happiness. This situation is known as an ''organic unity''a whole whose intrinsic value differs from the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts. Another perspective, called ''holism about value'', asserts that the intrinsic value of a thing depends on its context. Holists can argue that happiness has positive intrinsic value in the context of virtue and negative intrinsic value in the context of vice. Atomists reject this view, saying that intrinsic value is context-independent.

Theories of value aggregation provide concrete principles for calculating the overall value of an outcome based on how positively or negatively each individual is affected by it. For example, if a government implements a new policy that affects some people positively and others negatively, theories of value aggregation can be used to determine whether the overall value of the policy is positive or negative. Axiological utilitarianism accepts the additivity principle, saying that the total value is simply the sum of all individual values. Axiological egalitarians are not only interested in the sum total of value but also in how the values are distributed. They argue that an outcome with a balanced advantage distribution is better than an outcome where some benefit a lot while others benefit little, even if the two outcomes have the same sum total. Axiological prioritarians are particularly concerned with the benefits of individuals who are worse off. They say that providing advantages to people in need has more value than providing the same advantages to others.

Another debate addresses the meaning of life, investigating whether life or existence as a whole has a higher meaning or purpose. Naturalist views argue that the meaning of life is found within the physical world, either as objective values that are true for everyone or as subjective values that vary according to individual preferences. Suggested fields where humans find meaning include exercising freedom, committing oneself to a cause, practicing altruism, engaging in positive social relationships, or pursuing personal happiness. Supernaturalists, by contrast, propose that meaning lies beyond the natural world. For example, various religions teach that God created the world for a higher purpose, imbuing existence with meaning. A related outlook argues that immortal souls serve as sources of meaning by being connected to a transcendent reality and evolving spiritually. Existential nihilists reject both naturalist and supernaturalist explanations by asserting that there is no higher purpose. They suggest that life is meaningless, with the consequence that there is no higher reason to continue living and that all efforts, achievements, happiness, and suffering are ultimately pointless.

Formal axiology is a theory of value initially developed by philosopher Robert S. Hartman. This approach treats axiology as a formal science, akin to logic and mathematics. It uses axioms to give an abstract definition of value, understanding it not as a property of things but as a property of concepts. Value measures the extent to which an entity fulfills its concept. For example, a good car has all the desirable qualities of cars, like a reliable engine and effective brakes, whereas a bad car lacks many. Formal axiology distinguishes between three fundamental value types: intrinsic values apply to people; extrinsic values apply to things, actions, and social roles; systemic values apply to conceptual constructs. Formal axiology examines how these value types form a hierarchy and how they can be measured.

Methods

Value theorists employ various methods to conduct their inquiries, justify theories, and measure values. Intuitionists rely on intuitions to assess evaluative claims. In this context, an intuition is an immediate apprehension or understanding of a self-evident claim, meaning that its truth can be assessed without inferring it from another observation. Value theorists often rely on thought experiments to gain this type of understanding. Thought experiments are imagined scenarios that exemplify philosophical problems. Philosophers use counterfactual reasoning to evaluate possible consequences and gain insight into underlying problems. For example, philosopher Robert Nozick

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