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In 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 (H. T. Odum,
Environmental Accounting: Emergy and environmental decision-making, 1996).
In other fields, theories positing 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.
Ethics and axiology:
Main article: Value (ethics):
Intuitively, theories of value must be important to ethics. A number of useful
distinctions have been made by philosophers in the treatment of value.
Intrinsic and instrumental value:
Main article: Instrumental and intrinsic value:
It is useful to distinguish between instrumental and intrinsic values. This
distinction is based on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic
properties. First introduced by Plato in the "Republic", an
instrumental value is worth having as a means for getting something else that
is good (e.g., a radio is instrumentally good in order to hear music). An
intrinsically valuable thing, by contrast, is worth having for itself, not as a
means to something else. Intrinsic and instrumental goods do not constitute
mutually exclusive categories: some things can be found to be both good (in
themselves) while simultaneously being good for getting other things that have
value. A prominent argument in environmental ethics, made by writers like Aldo
Leopold and Holmes Rolston III, is that wild nature and healthy ecosystems have
intrinsic value, prior to and apart from their instrumental value as resources
for humans, and should therefore be preserved. This line of argument has been
articulated further in recent years by Canadian philosopher John McMurtry
within the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems published by UNESCO. 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." but should not be confused with the Ethic of Reciprocity
or Golden Rule, e.g. Mt. 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.
This is very important to keep in mind, because Kant's categorical imperative
avoids 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):
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 (H. T. Odum, Environmental Accounting: Emergy and
environmental decision-making, 1996). 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.
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