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Value theory

Value theory, also known as axiology, is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature, sources, criteria, and hierarchy of values, including their role in guiding human decisions and ethical judgments.^[1]^[2] Central to the field is the distinction between intrinsic value, which pertains to ends valuable for their own sake, such as pleasure or knowledge, and instrumental value, which derives worth from serving as means to achieve intrinsic ends, like tools or skills.^[3] This framework underpins broader inquiries into whether values are objective properties of the world, subjective preferences, or relational outcomes of causal interactions, influencing disciplines from ethics to economics.^[4] Key debates include value monism, positing a single ultimate good, versus pluralism, which holds multiple irreducible values in potential conflict, as explored by thinkers like G.E. Moore in his analysis of non-natural intrinsic properties and Isaiah Berlin in his defense of value incommensurability.^[3] These discussions reveal foundational tensions in how values motivate action, with empirical observations of human behavior suggesting that values often emerge from evolved biological imperatives and environmental contingencies rather than purely abstract ideals.^[5]

Definition and Core Concepts

Definition and Scope

Value theory, also termed axiology from the Greek axios (worthy) and logos (study or account), constitutes the philosophical inquiry into the nature, origins, types, and criteria of value.^[6] It systematically examines what renders entities, states, or actions valuable—whether intrinsically as ends in themselves or instrumentally as means to further ends—and probes the metaphysical status of value, including debates over its objectivity, subjectivity, or relational dependence on valuers.^[6] This field distinguishes value from mere preference or utility by grounding analysis in conceptual precision, often contrasting it with deontic notions like rightness or obligation, which pertain to action guidance rather than worth attribution.^[7] The scope of value theory extends beyond isolated ethical prescriptions to encompass evaluative dimensions across human experience, primarily branching into ethics, which scrutinizes moral goods such as justice, virtue, and human flourishing, and aesthetics, which assesses beauty, artistic merit, and sensory worth.^[6] It further intersects with political and social philosophy by evaluating institutional arrangements, rights, and communal ideals in terms of their contributory value to societal ends, while occasionally informing economic theories of rational choice through analyses of instrumental rationality.^[8] Unlike empirical sciences that measure observable phenomena, value theory employs a priori reasoning and conceptual clarification to adjudicate foundational questions, such as whether values inhere in objects independently of perception or emerge from evolutionary adaptations and cultural constructs.^[6] Central to its purview is the delineation of value monism, positing a singular ultimate good (e.g., pleasure in hedonism or knowledge in intellectualism), versus pluralism, which recognizes irreducible varieties of value subject to potential conflict and incommensurability.^[9] This framework underpins broader philosophical pursuits, influencing metaphysics by questioning value's place in reality's structure and epistemology by clarifying how evaluative knowledge differs from factual cognition. Empirical data from psychology and neuroscience, such as studies on hedonic responses dated to the 2010s onward, occasionally inform but do not supplant its normative core, as value judgments resist full reduction to causal mechanisms.^[10] Thus, value theory maintains a foundational role in philosophy, providing the conceptual tools for critiquing assumptions in applied domains like policy and technology without conflating descriptive utility with prescriptive worth.

Types and Distinctions of Value

In axiology, the primary distinction concerns intrinsic value and extrinsic value, where intrinsic value refers to the worth a thing possesses in itself or for its own sake, independent of its relations to other entities.^[11] Extrinsic value, by contrast, derives from a thing's capacity to produce or contribute to something else of value, often through causal means.^[11] This bifurcation structures much of value theory, as intrinsic value serves as the foundational terminus for evaluative chains, while extrinsic value explains the derivative worth of means to ends.^[7] Intrinsic value can be positive, as in states deemed good such as pleasure or achievement, or negative, as in states deemed bad such as pain or injustice, with the polarity reflecting the inherent goodness or badness independent of further consequences.^[11] Philosophers like G.E. Moore argued that intrinsic value is non-natural and discerned through intuition, exemplified by the organic unity of beauty where the whole exceeds the sum of parts.^[12] Negative intrinsic value, or intrinsic disvalue, similarly applies to entities like suffering, which hold worthlessness or harmfulness non-derivatively. Extrinsic value encompasses instrumental value, specifically the worth of an object or action as a reliable means to realizing intrinsic value, such as tools or knowledge that causally enable ends like health or enlightenment.^[11] Instrumental relations form chains, where one extrinsic value promotes another, ultimately terminating in intrinsic value; for instance, acquiring skills (instrumental) leads to expertise (further instrumental), culminating in personal fulfillment (intrinsic).^[7] Some analyses distinguish broader extrinsic value from purely instrumental, allowing for non-causal derivations like symbolic or relational worth, though instrumental cases dominate ethical and practical deliberations.^[11] Additional distinctions include contributory value, where an item's worth emerges from its role in enhancing the intrinsic value of a larger whole, as in parts of a symphony whose individual notes gain value through contextual fittingness.^[7] This contrasts with atomic views that assess components independently. Formal axiology, developed by Robert S. Hartman, further categorizes values into intrinsic (systemic fulfillment in persons), extrinsic (functional efficacy in objects), and systemic (relational harmony in concepts), emphasizing quantitative measurement via value science.^[13] These types underscore axiology's aim to classify and measure value precisely, informing ethical, aesthetic, and economic judgments without presupposing monistic reduction.^[7]

Evaluative Language and Concepts

Evaluative concepts constitute the linguistic tools through which value theory articulates judgments about what is good, bad, better, or worse, encompassing terms like "valuable," "desirable," and "worthwhile" that go beyond mere factual description to imply normative force or endorsement.^[7] These concepts often embed evaluations that guide action or preference, as in claims such as "pleasure is good" or "knowledge is valuable," which assert not just states of affairs but their worth relative to human ends or standards.^[7] Unlike descriptive language, which reports observable properties (e.g., "this object is red"), evaluative language inherently involves appraisal, raising questions about whether such terms track objective features of the world or reflect subjective attitudes.^[14] A core distinction in evaluative language lies between normative and descriptive modes: normative expressions prescribe or evaluate (e.g., "one ought to pursue justice"), deriving their authority from putative reasons or values, whereas descriptive ones neutrally depict reality without commendation.^[14] In value theory, this manifests in analyses of "good," which Peter Geach differentiated into predicative uses (e.g., "pleasure is good," implying intrinsic merit) and attributive uses (e.g., "a good knife," relative to function).^[7] G.E. Moore argued that "good" denotes a simple, non-natural property indefinable in descriptive terms, critiquing attempts to reduce it to natural facts as committing the naturalistic fallacy.^[7] Thick evaluative concepts integrate substantial descriptive content with evaluation, such as "courageous" (describing bravery in facing danger while approving it) or "cruel" (noting harm-infliction with condemnation), contrasting with thin concepts like "good" or "right" that provide minimal descriptive specificity yet broad normative weight.^[15] Bernard Williams highlighted thick concepts' role in ethical deliberation, arguing they embed cultural and contextual particulars that thin concepts abstract away, potentially bridging fact and value without collapsing into pure subjectivism.^[15] R.M. Hare, conversely, viewed thick terms as descriptively laden prescriptions, with their evaluative force detachable via generalization to thin equivalents, though debates persist on whether evaluation is semantically fused or pragmatically added to thick descriptors.^[15] Empirical linguistic studies support polarity effects in thick concepts, where positive/negative valence influences interpretation beyond neutral description.^[15] Philosophical analysis of evaluative language also addresses fittingness: under fitting-attitude theories, a thing's value obtains when attitudes like desire or admiration toward it are appropriate, rendering evaluative claims responsive to reasons rather than mere projections.^[16] Objectivity debates hinge on whether such language cognizes mind-independent truths (cognitivism) or expresses non-truth-apt sentiments (non-cognitivism), with realists like Moore defending the former against reductionist errors.^[7] These concepts underpin value theory's broader inquiry, informing how linguistic evaluations causalize behavior and institutional norms without presuming unverified relativism.^[14]

Ontological Foundations

Value Realism and Objectivity

Value realism posits that evaluative facts and properties exist independently of human minds, attitudes, or conventions, such that certain things possess intrinsic value regardless of whether anyone perceives or endorses them.^[17] This view maintains that value claims, like assertions that knowledge is good or cruelty is bad, can be literally true or false by corresponding to objective features of reality, rather than being mere expressions of preference or projection.^[18] Objectivity in this context implies mind-independence and stance-independence, where values are not altered by cultural variation or individual belief, though they may supervene on natural facts without being reducible to them.^[17] Historically, value realism traces to ancient philosophers who treated the good as an objective form or telos inherent in nature. Plato's theory of Forms positioned the Good as a transcendent, eternal reality apprehensible by reason, foundational to ethical knowledge. Aristotle similarly viewed eudaimonia as an objective human flourishing grounded in natural function, discoverable through empirical observation of virtues that reliably promote well-being across contexts. In modern philosophy, G. E. Moore advanced non-naturalist value realism in Principia Ethica (1903), contending that "good" denotes a simple, indefinable property distinct from natural qualities like pleasure, known directly via intuition rather than empirical analysis.^[19] Moore's open-question argument critiqued naturalism by showing that equating good with any natural property leaves open whether that property is truly good, preserving value's sui generis status.^[19] Key arguments for value realism emphasize its explanatory power for human practices. Deliberation about what to value or pursue implicitly assumes objective standards, as agents weigh options against reasons that purport to track mind-independent truths rather than arbitrary whims; rejecting realism undermines the rationality of such reasoning.^[20] Additionally, the supervenience of value on non-value facts—where identical natural circumstances yield identical evaluative outcomes—suggests values as irreducible but real features, akin to other supervenient properties in science. Empirical support draws from folk intuitions, where surveys indicate most people treat moral and evaluative judgments as objectively true, aligning with realist commitments over error theories that deem all such claims false.^[21] Contemporary defenses robustly affirm value objectivity against antirealist challenges. Russ Shafer-Landau, in Moral Realism: A Defence (2003), argues that objective values are necessary, a priori truths grounded in non-natural properties, resilient to epistemic access problems or queerness objections by analogy to mathematical realism. David Enoch's Taking Morality Seriously (2011) extends this to robust realism, positing normative facts as explanatorily indispensable for understanding practical reasoning and disagreement, where rejecting them leaves core human activities inexplicable.^[22] These views counter evolutionary debunking by noting that adaptive beliefs can track objective truths, as natural selection favors accurate valuation of survival-promoting goods like cooperation.^[23] Despite persistent objections from moral disagreement or parsimony, value realism persists as a viable ontological foundation, supported by its coherence with observed ethical convergence in areas like harm prohibition across societies.^[24]

Value Anti-Realism and Subjectivism

Value anti-realism posits that there are no stance-independent facts about value, such that evaluative statements do not describe objective properties of the world but rather express attitudes, preferences, or projections of the mind.^[25] This view contrasts with realism by denying that values supervene on natural facts in a way that allows for mind-independent moral or evaluative truth.^[26] Proponents argue that the apparent objectivity of value claims arises from linguistic conventions or social practices rather than discovery of external realities, as evidenced by persistent moral disagreement across cultures without convergence on objective standards.^[27] Subjectivism, a prominent form of anti-realism, holds that the truth or justification of value judgments depends on the subjective states—such as desires, emotions, or approvals—of individuals or groups.^[28] For instance, an action is deemed good if it aligns with the valuer's attitudes, rendering value relative to the subject's perspective rather than universal properties.^[29] This position traces to David Hume, who in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740) contended that moral distinctions originate from sentiments of approbation or disapprobation, not reason, famously noting that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions."^[30] Hume's is-ought distinction further bolsters subjectivism by demonstrating that normative claims ("oughts") cannot be logically deduced from descriptive facts ("is's"), implying values derive from motivational psychology rather than objective ontology.^[31] Key arguments for subjectivism include the explanatory power of attitudes in accounting for value variation: empirical observations of diverse preferences across individuals and societies suggest values function as extensions of personal utility rather than fixed truths.^[32] J.L. Mackie, in his 1977 work Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, reinforced this by asserting the "subjectivity of values," arguing that objective prescriptive values would require metaphysically "queer" entities inexplicable by natural science, leading to the conclusion that moral claims project subjective demands onto the world without corresponding reality.^[33] Critics within philosophy note, however, that pure subjectivism struggles with interpersonal moral discourse, as it undermines the binding force of ethical claims beyond mere reporting of feelings, though subjectivists counter that this reflects the actual motivational basis of valuation without need for illusionary objectivity.^[34] In broader value theory, subjectivism extends to non-moral domains, such as aesthetics or economics, where value is seen as arising from individual appraisals; for example, the Austrian school's subjective theory of value, developed by Carl Menger in 1871, posits that economic worth emerges from personal marginal utility assessments, not inherent labor or properties.^[35] This aligns with anti-realist causal realism by grounding valuation in observable psychological processes, like desire satisfaction, rather than unverified objective essences, though empirical studies in psychology indicate that such attitudes often evolve from adaptive traits, complicating claims of pure arbitrariness.^[36]

Sources and Origins of Value

Objective and Intrinsic Sources

Objective sources of value in philosophy posit that intrinsic value—value possessed for its own sake, independent of instrumental utility—originates from mind-independent features of reality, such as metaphysical structures or natural essences, rather than subjective preferences or contingent relations.^[37] These theories contrast with subjectivist accounts by asserting that certain objects or states are inherently valuable, detectable through reason or intuition, irrespective of human valuation.^[38] In Platonic idealism, intrinsic values derive from eternal, objective Forms, abstract entities embodying perfections like the Good, which ground all particular goods in the sensible world. The Republic contends that the Form of the Good illuminates truth and value, making justice and other virtues intrinsically desirable as participations in this objective reality, known via dialectical ascent beyond sensory illusion.^[39] This framework implies a hierarchical ontology where lower goods reflect higher, unchanging intrinsic sources, prioritizing rational insight over empirical contingency.^[8] Aristotle's teleological ethics locates the primary intrinsic source in eudaimonia, human flourishing realized through rational activity in accordance with virtue, as the complete and self-sufficient good aligned with humanity's natural function. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues this end is objectively determined by the essence of rational beings, pursued not for external rewards but inherently, with virtues like courage and wisdom contributing constitutively to its realization.^[40] Empirical observation of human capacities supports this, as activities fulfilling potential yield fulfillment absent further justification.^[41] Twentieth-century non-naturalism, as articulated by G.E. Moore, conceives intrinsic value as a simple, indefinable property supervening on natural facts, objectively present in states like yellow-tinged pleasure, apprehended intuitively rather than derived analytically. Principia Ethica maintains that "good" cannot be reduced to natural predicates, preserving its status as an objective, non-relational quality that actions ought to maximize.^[42] Moore's isolation test—imagining the state in causal detachment—confirms intrinsic worth, countering reductionist challenges by emphasizing direct acquaintance with value's non-natural essence. This approach underscores causal irrelevance for intrinsic ascription, aligning with realism against emotivist or relativist dismissals.^[43]

Subjective, Instrumental, and Evolutionary Sources

Subjective theories of value posit that values originate from individual mental states, such as desires, preferences, or emotional responses, rather than from objective properties of objects or states of affairs.^[7] In these accounts, something is valuable insofar as it is desired or approved by a subject, emphasizing the psychological dependency of value on the valuer's attitudes.^[7] For instance, economic subjectivism, as articulated by Carl Menger in 1871, holds that the value of goods arises from their ability to satisfy human needs as perceived by individuals, varying across persons and contexts based on subjective utility. Instrumental values, by contrast, derive their worth not inherently but from their instrumental role in promoting or realizing other values, typically intrinsic ones.^[44] This causal relation distinguishes them: an action or object has instrumental value if it reliably leads to something of final or non-derivative value, such as health deriving value from enabling pleasure or survival.^[7] Philosophers like G. E. Moore, in Principia Ethica (1903), contrasted instrumental goods (means) with intrinsic ones (ends), arguing that the former's goodness depends entirely on their efficacy in producing the latter.^[45] Chains of instrumental values can extend indefinitely, where each step serves the next, but they terminate in intrinsic values to avoid infinite regress.^[7] Evolutionary sources of value suggest that human valuations emerge from biological adaptations shaped by natural selection, prioritizing traits and behaviors that enhanced ancestral fitness, such as kin protection, reciprocity, and resource acquisition.^[46] These values manifest as innate preferences or aversions—e.g., aversion to pain or favoritism toward offspring—that conferred survival and reproductive advantages over millennia.^[47] Empirical support comes from evolutionary psychology, where studies of primates and cross-cultural patterns reveal conserved biases, like status-seeking or coalitional alliances, as products of selection pressures rather than arbitrary cultural constructs.^[48] While such origins explain the prevalence of certain values, they do not necessarily undermine their normative force, though critics argue evolutionary explanations risk the "is-ought" fallacy by conflating descriptive origins with prescriptive validity.^[49] Recent models, including coalitional value theory, integrate these sources by viewing values as mechanisms for social coordination in group-living ancestors, adapting to environmental demands like scarcity or predation.^[48]

Major Philosophical Positions

Monism versus Pluralism

In value theory, monism holds that there is a single fundamental kind of intrinsic value to which all other values reduce or from which they derive, enabling a unified scale for comparing and ranking goods.^[50] This position maintains that apparent diversity in values—such as pleasure, knowledge, or virtue—either constitutes variations of one basic good or serves instrumentally toward it, avoiding irreducible conflicts.^[51] Proponents argue that monism provides ontological parsimony, as positing one core value simplifies explanations of rational choice and moral deliberation without invoking incommensurable alternatives.^[51] For instance, hedonistic monism, as defended in ancient debates like Plato's Philebus, identifies pleasure as the sole intrinsic good, with intellectual or virtuous activities valued insofar as they contribute to it.^[51] Value pluralism, by contrast, asserts the existence of multiple irreducible intrinsic values that cannot be fully ordered or subsumed under a single standard, often leading to genuine tragic trade-offs where no option maximizes overall value.^[52] This view accommodates observed moral phenomena, such as the incommensurability of liberty versus equality or autonomy versus community, where forcing a reduction distorts the distinct worth of each.^[50] Isaiah Berlin advanced pluralism through historical analysis, contending that incompatible ends like negative liberty and positive equality have persisted across cultures without one demonstrably superior, as evidenced in thinkers from Machiavelli to the Romantic era; monistic attempts to reconcile them, he argued, ignore the "tragic" residues of choice.^[53] Pluralists counter monism's simplicity by noting that empirical ethical intuitions reveal non-derivative commitments to diverse goods, such as truth and beauty, which resist hierarchical unification without ad hoc adjustments.^[54] The debate hinges on explanatory power: monists claim pluralism multiplies entities unnecessarily, complicating decision-making without explanatory gain, as all values can be weighed against a common metric like welfare in consequentialist frameworks.^[55] Pluralists respond that monism falters in cases of value incomparability, where no neutral scale exists, as supported by analyses of moral dilemmas showing persistent residues—uncompensated losses—after purportedly optimal choices.^[52] Empirical support for pluralism draws from cross-cultural persistence of conflicting priorities, while monism aligns with formal models in decision theory favoring scalar comparability.^[50] Neither position resolves all axiological puzzles, but pluralism better captures the causal complexity of human valuation, where values evolve through interaction rather than reduction to a singular essence.^[53]

Formalist and Other Specialized Theories

Formal axiology represents a formalist approach to value theory, emphasizing abstract, logical structures and measurable dimensions of value rather than substantive content or subjective preferences. Pioneered by Robert S. Hartman in the mid-20th century, it posits that goodness consists in the fulfillment of a concept or standard, allowing for a scientific quantification of value through set-theoretic principles.^[13] This framework distinguishes three value dimensions: intrinsic value, which pertains to the unique fulfillment of an individual essence (e.g., a person's singular humanity); extrinsic value, tied to functional roles within systems (e.g., a tool's utility); and systemic value, involving abstract conceptual structures (e.g., mathematical truths). Hartman argued that intrinsic value surpasses extrinsic, which in turn exceeds systemic, forming a hierarchy that enables value measurement via "value density"—the ratio of actual to possible fulfillments in a given dimension.^[56] Hartman's system links value to transfinite set theory, where higher fulfillments correspond to larger cardinalities, providing a calculus for comparing values across contexts, such as in ethical decision-making or policy evaluation. Applications include the Hartman Value Profile, a psychometric tool assessing personal value structures for uses in psychology and management, though critics question its reduction of qualitative value to quantitative metrics.^[13] Earlier influences appear in Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, who conceived formal axiology as parallel to formal logic, deriving apriori laws such as the superiority of pure goods over those mixed with evils, or the principle that the value of a positive whole exceeds the sum of its parts. Husserl drew from Franz Brentano's value theory but critiqued its subjectivism, advocating objective formal structures governing emotional and preferential responses.^[57] Other formalist contributions include Georg Henrik von Wright's logical analysis of goodness varieties in his 1963 work The Varieties of Goodness, which dissects value relations without ontological commitments to value properties. Von Wright identifies six primary forms—instrumental (means to ends), technical (skill efficacy), hedonic (pleasure production), utilitarian (welfare promotion), medical (health restoration), and intrinsic good of a being—analyzing their comparative structures, such as transitivity in preferences or incomparability in conflicts. This approach formalizes value as relational concepts amenable to deontic logic, influencing decision theory by clarifying how values aggregate or conflict in practical reasoning.^[58] Specialized theories extend formalism into niche domains, such as fitting-attitude analyses, where value is defined dispositionally: something has value if it merits certain attitudes like desire or admiration, without positing value as a substantive property. Proponents argue this avoids ontological extravagance while preserving normative force, though it faces challenges in explaining "reasons holism" where attitudes depend on contextual relations. These theories prioritize structural relations over metaphysical grounding, aligning with formalist aims but often integrating hybrid elements from realism or constructivism for broader applicability in ethics and economics.^[59]

Applications in Key Disciplines

Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Value theory serves as the axiological foundation for ethics, identifying what constitutes the good that moral actions ought to promote or respect. In moral philosophy, intrinsic values—such as knowledge, beauty, or human flourishing—provide the criteria for evaluating rightness, distinct from instrumental values derived from consequences or duties. Philosophers like G.E. Moore emphasized that ethical inquiry centers on discerning these intrinsic goods, arguing in Principia Ethica (1903) that "good" denotes a simple, non-natural property apprehended through intuition, with states like personal affection and aesthetic contemplation holding supreme intrinsic value.^[60] This approach influenced non-naturalist ethics, prioritizing the direct valuation of ends over means. Consequentialist moral theories, including utilitarianism, integrate value theory by defining moral rightness as the maximization of overall intrinsic value in outcomes. Jeremy Bentham (1789) quantified value in terms of pleasure and pain, proposing a hedonic calculus to measure utility, while John Stuart Mill (1861) refined this to distinguish higher pleasures like intellectual pursuits as possessing greater intrinsic worth. Empirical challenges arise, as hedonic states prove difficult to aggregate objectively, yet consequentialism's causal focus aligns with evaluating actions by their value-producing effects, as seen in rule-utilitarianism's emphasis on general utility rules.^[61] Deontological ethics, conversely, grounds moral obligations in values inherent to agents or rules, often independent of consequential value promotion. Immanuel Kant (1785) posited the good will as possessing unconditional value, deriving duties from rational imperatives rather than empirical goods, critiquing consequentialism for subordinating intrinsic human dignity to outcomes.^[62] This framework values autonomy and rights as non-negotiable, with violations like lying deemed intrinsically wrong regardless of beneficial results, reflecting a commitment to deontic constraints over aggregative value theory. Virtue ethics, rooted in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (c. 350 BCE), conceives moral goodness through character traits enabling eudaimonia, a state of rational activity in accordance with virtue held as intrinsically valuable. Aristotle argued that virtues like courage and justice realize human telos, with eudaimonia not merely pleasurable but the fulfillment of potential, empirically observable in balanced lives rather than abstract calculations.^[63] Modern virtue theorists, such as Alasdair MacIntyre (1981), extend this by critiquing rule-based systems for neglecting narrative contexts of value realization in communities. These approaches highlight value theory's role in ethics, where pluralism in valuing—intrinsic goods, duties, or flourishing—yields competing yet complementary moral frameworks, each tested against causal realities of human action.

Economics and Decision-Making

In economics, value theory underwent a pivotal transformation during the Marginal Revolution of the 1870s, when economists Carl Menger, William Stanley Jevons, and Léon Walras independently developed the subjective theory of value, emphasizing that the worth of goods derives from individuals' marginal utility and preferences rather than objective measures like labor input or production costs.^[64] This supplanted earlier classical views, such as Adam Smith's labor theory of value, which attributed worth primarily to the quantity of labor embodied in commodities.^[65] The subjective approach explains market prices as emerging from subjective valuations in exchange, where value is not intrinsic but relational and dependent on scarcity and human wants.^[66] In decision-making, value theory underpins rational choice models, where agents select options to maximize expected utility—a measure of satisfaction or preference fulfillment—subject to constraints like budgets and information availability.^[67] The expected utility hypothesis, formalized by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944, provides a framework for choices under uncertainty by assigning probabilities to outcomes and weighting them by utility values, assuming transitivity, completeness, and independence of preferences. This enables predictions of behavior in consumer theory, where diminishing marginal utility implies that additional units of a good yield progressively less value, guiding optimal allocation. Critiques from behavioral economics, advanced by scholars like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky since the 1970s, challenge strict rationality assumptions, demonstrating systematic deviations such as loss aversion—where losses loom larger than equivalent gains—and framing effects that alter perceived value without changing objective outcomes.^[68] Prospect theory, their alternative, posits that people evaluate values relative to reference points rather than absolute utilities, incorporating nonlinear probability weighting that better fits empirical data on risky decisions.^[69] These findings imply that while subjective value remains central, decision-making often incorporates cognitive biases, prompting refinements in economic modeling for realism without discarding utility maximization as an ideal benchmark.^[70]

Psychology, Biology, and Cognitive Science

From a biological perspective, human values emerge as adaptations shaped by natural selection to enhance survival and reproductive success. Evolutionary theory posits that behaviors associated with values such as altruism and cooperation arise from mechanisms like kin selection, where individuals favor relatives to propagate shared genes, as formalized in Hamilton's rule (rB > C, where r is relatedness, B benefit to recipient, C cost to actor).^[71] Reciprocal altruism further explains cooperative values in non-kin through iterated interactions, supported by game-theoretic models showing stability in prisoner's dilemma scenarios under conditions of future encounters.^[72] In psychology, values function as stable motivational goals guiding behavior, with Shalom Schwartz's theory identifying ten universal basic values—such as power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security—organized in a circular structure reflecting motivational conflicts and compatibilities.^[73] This model, derived from surveys across 82 countries involving over 25,000 participants, demonstrates cross-cultural invariance in the value structure, with empirical factor analyses confirming the predicted quasi-circular arrangement via smallest space analysis.^[74] Values predict attitudes and behaviors, such as environmentalism correlating with universalism, though individual differences arise from socialization and situational priming.^[75] Cognitive science elucidates value through neural mechanisms, where the brain encodes subjective value in a common currency to facilitate decision-making across diverse options. Functional neuroimaging reveals the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) as key regions representing value signals, integrating sensory inputs, rewards, and costs into a unified metric, as evidenced by fMRI studies showing parametric modulation of BOLD activity with perceived value in choice tasks.^[76] Dopaminergic midbrain projections to these areas signal reward prediction errors, updating value estimates via reinforcement learning algorithms, with lesions impairing value-based choices in both human patients and animal models.^[77] Prospect theory from behavioral economics, integrated into cognitive models, accounts for asymmetries in value perception, such as loss aversion where losses loom larger than gains, supported by neural data from gain-loss framing paradigms.^[78]

Historical Evolution

Ancient and Classical Foundations

Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE) laid early groundwork for value theory by equating virtue with knowledge, positing that all human actions aim at the good and that wrongdoing stems from ignorance rather than deliberate choice.^[79] He argued through dialectical questioning that no one errs willingly, implying that true understanding of the good necessarily leads to virtuous behavior, with wisdom itself constituting the highest value.^[80] This Socratic paradox emphasized epistemic access to objective goods as foundational to ethical value, influencing subsequent philosophers despite lacking written works of his own.^[81] Plato (c. 428–348 BCE), Socrates' student, developed a metaphysical framework for value in his theory of Forms, where the Form of the Good occupies the apex as the ultimate source of reality, truth, and intelligibility.^[82] In the Republic, he analogized the Good to the sun, which illuminates the visible world, suggesting that the Form of the Good enables knowledge of all other Forms and particulars, rendering it the supreme intrinsic value beyond mere utility.^[83] Plato's divided line and cave allegories further posit that ascent to understanding the Good constitutes the highest human fulfillment, prioritizing eternal, immaterial ideals over sensory pleasures or conventional goods.^[82] Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Plato's pupil, critiqued the Form of the Good's transcendence while advancing eudaimonia—often translated as flourishing or happiness—as the highest human good, defined as rational activity of the soul in accordance with complete virtue over a complete life.^[84] In the Nicomachean Ethics, he rejected pleasure as the ultimate end, arguing instead that eudaimonia integrates intellectual and moral virtues, achieved through the doctrine of the mean and contemplation as the most self-sufficient activity.^[85] Aristotle's teleological view framed values hierarchically, with external goods like health supporting but not constituting the intrinsic telos of human nature.^[63] In the Hellenistic period, Stoicism and Epicureanism extended classical value inquiries. Stoics, founded by Zeno of Citium (c. 334–262 BCE), identified virtue—living in accordance with nature and reason—as the sole intrinsic good, deeming externals like wealth or pain indifferent to true happiness (eudaimonia).^[86] Epicureans, led by Epicurus (341–270 BCE), posited pleasure (understood as the absence of pain and disturbance, ataraxia) as the highest good, advocating simple living and atomistic materialism to maximize stable, natural desires over vain pursuits.^[87] These schools diverged on the nature of value—rational conformity versus hedonic calculus—yet both emphasized self-mastery amid fortune's contingencies, bridging ancient ideals to practical ethics.^[88]

Medieval to Enlightenment Developments

In medieval philosophy, scholastic thinkers synthesized Aristotelian concepts of the good with Christian theology, positing that value inheres in objects and actions insofar as they perfect human nature and lead toward union with God as the ultimate end. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274), in his Summa Theologica, argued that goodness is that which is desirable for its own sake, with all finite goods deriving their value from participation in divine goodness, the summum bonum.^[89] Aquinas extended this to economic value, maintaining that the just price of goods reflects the labor expended in production and their utility in fulfilling human needs, thereby grounding exchange value in objective human ends rather than subjective whim.^[90] This framework emphasized intrinsic value in moral virtues and teleological order, contrasting with purely instrumental valuations by subordinating them to eternal beatitude. Late medieval developments introduced tensions through nominalism and voluntarism, challenging the rational necessity of values. William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347) contended that moral values and natural laws derive primarily from God's arbitrary will rather than an inherent rational order, rendering obligations contingent on divine command rather than metaphysical necessity. This shift eroded confidence in universal, reason-derived hierarchies of value, paving the way for more subjective interpretations in subsequent eras, though Ockham retained a theistic foundation for good as conformity to God's will. Scholastic debates on universals further influenced value theory by questioning whether evaluative properties like "goodness" exist independently or merely as mental constructs. The Renaissance humanism of the 14th to 16th centuries marked a transitional emphasis on human dignity and potential, diluting medieval theocentrism. Figures like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) in his Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) portrayed humans as capable of self-determination in pursuing diverse goods, elevating individual agency and earthly flourishing as loci of value beyond strict ecclesiastical hierarchy. This anthropocentric turn facilitated secular valuations in politics and arts, as seen in Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (1532), which pragmatically assessed political actions by their instrumental efficacy in maintaining power rather than moral absolutes. Enlightenment thinkers (17th–18th centuries) secularized value theory through empiricism and rationalism, prioritizing human experience, rights, and utility over divine teleology. John Locke (1632–1704), in Two Treatises of Government (1689), rooted property value in labor-mixed natural resources, asserting that individuals have natural rights to life, liberty, and estate as intrinsic goods derivable from reason and self-preservation.^[91] David Hume (1711–1776), in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), argued that values stem from sentiments and passions rather than reason alone, with moral distinctions arising from approbation of actions conducive to social utility, famously distinguishing "is" from "ought" to critique deriving normative values from factual premises.^[92] These empiricist views fostered pluralism in values, influencing emerging utilitarian frameworks while challenging medieval monism by grounding worth in observable human welfare and contractual consent.^[92]

Modern and Contemporary Advances

In 1903, G.E. Moore published Principia Ethica, which critiqued attempts to define "good" in naturalistic terms such as pleasure or evolutionary fitness, arguing that such reductions commit the naturalistic fallacy by equating a non-natural simple property with complex natural ones. Moore posited that goodness is indefinable and known through intuition, emphasizing intrinsic values like personal affection, aesthetic appreciation, and knowledge of true propositions, which hold value independently of consequences. His doctrine of organic unities further asserted that the value of wholes exceeds the sum of parts, as in the case where evil means can enhance overall good when combined with great goods.^[93] Mid-20th-century developments included Georg Henrik von Wright's 1963 The Varieties of Goodness, which systematically categorized forms of goodness beyond monistic accounts, including instrumental goodness (means efficacious for ends), technical goodness (efficient means), utilitarian goodness (contributing to aggregate utility), and beneficient or malevolent goodness (promoting or harming welfare). Von Wright's analysis drew on logical empiricist tools to clarify value concepts' relations to facts and norms, advocating a pluralistic understanding rooted in linguistic and conceptual examination rather than intuitionism alone.^[94] Contemporary advances shifted toward empirical integration, exemplified by Shalom Schwartz's theory of basic human values, developed from cross-cultural surveys of over 25,000 people in more than 40 countries starting in the 1980s and refined by 1992. Schwartz identified ten motivationally distinct values—such as power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security—arranged in a quasi-circular structure reflecting compatible and conflicting priorities, with empirical validation through the Schwartz Value Survey used in over 80 countries. This framework derives values from three universal requirements: individual and group welfare needs, societal coordination, and organismic needs for anxiety avoidance and autonomy, providing a testable model bridging philosophy and psychology.^[73]

Debates, Criticisms, and Challenges

Critiques of Relativism and Subjectivism

One prominent logical critique of relativism holds that it is self-refuting, as the assertion that all values are relative to individuals or cultures presupposes an objective, universal standard for evaluating truth claims about values themselves.^[95] This objection traces to Plato's peritrope argument against Protagoras, which demonstrates that relativism, if applied consistently, renders all propositions—including the relativist thesis—equally valid or invalid, leading to incoherence in rational discourse.^[95] Subjectivism faces analogous issues, reducing values to personal emotive responses without criteria for adjudication, which critics contend dissolves normative claims into mere expressions of taste, incapable of supporting interpersonal moral obligations or criticism.^[96] Relativism further encounters difficulties in addressing tolerance and moral condemnation, as it precludes labeling practices like slavery or genocide as objectively wrong if endorsed by a dominant cultural consensus, thereby licensing intolerance under the guise of non-judgmentalism.^[96] Proponents of this view, such as James Rachels, argue that such tolerance paradoxically enables the persistence of harmful systems by denying external standards for reform, as seen in historical defenses of practices like sati (widow-burning) within specific traditions.^[95] Subjectivism exacerbates this by implying that an individual's endorsement of atrocity is as valid as opposition to it, eroding any basis for societal intervention or legal prohibitions grounded in shared human welfare. Empirical cross-cultural research challenges the purported radical diversity underlying relativism and subjectivism, revealing consistent priorities across societies. Shalom Schwartz's theory of basic human values, derived from surveys of over 25,000 individuals in 44 countries since the 1990s, identifies ten universal motivational types—such as benevolence (preserving welfare of close others) and universalism (concern for all people and nature)—structured in a circular model reflecting inherent tensions, suggesting values stem from common existential requirements rather than arbitrary subjectivity.^[97] These findings, replicated in over 80 countries, indicate that while expressions vary, core value hierarchies are not infinitely malleable but constrained by biological and social universals, countering claims of pure relativism.^[98] Critics also note that relativism and subjectivism undermine accounts of moral progress, framing shifts like the global decline in violence—evidenced by homicide rates dropping from 100 per 100,000 in medieval Europe to under 1 in modern democracies—as mere cultural fashion rather than approximation to objective truths about human flourishing.^[96] Evolutionary perspectives reinforce this by positing that values like reciprocity and kin altruism evolved as adaptive mechanisms for survival and cooperation, providing non-arbitrary foundations that transcend individual whim, as human moral intuitions converge on harm avoidance and fairness across genetically diverse populations.^[72] Despite academic inclinations toward relativist interpretations, these data-driven patterns affirm constraints on value variation, prioritizing causal mechanisms over unfettered subjectivity.^[96]

Empirical and Scientific Integration Issues

The principal obstacle to empirically grounding value theory lies in the is-ought distinction, articulated by David Hume, which maintains that descriptive facts about the world cannot logically entail prescriptive norms without additional normative premises. Scientific inquiries, such as those in evolutionary biology detailing the adaptive origins of cooperative behaviors, describe causal mechanisms but fail to prescribe why such behaviors possess intrinsic value or obligate adherence.^[99] This gap undermines naturalist reductions of value to empirical properties, as attempts to equate "good" with pleasure, fitness, or neural correlates leave open the question of whether those properties truly confer value, per G.E. Moore's open-question argument.^[100] Naturalistic value theories face further criticism for conflating explanatory power with normative force; for example, identifying moral intuitions via fMRI scans explains psychological processes but does not validate their ethical content, risking the naturalistic fallacy of deriving "ought" from "is." Empirical support for value claims remains elusive, as sociological studies often lack robust verification, with aggregate preferences varying unpredictably across contexts and failing to isolate intrinsic from instrumental valuations.^[101] In bioethics, integrating empirical data on decision-making with normative analysis frequently devolves into vagueness, where descriptive findings neither confirm nor refute value judgments, highlighting methodological opacity in purported syntheses.^[102] Quantitative measurement exacerbates these issues, as tools assessing values—such as surveys of preferences or revealed choice data—introduce biases like sensitivity to framing, insensitivity to quantity of outcomes, and overreliance on self-reports distorted by social desirability. Economic models deriving utility from observed behaviors assume ordinal comparability but overlook interpersonal differences and normative ideals beyond market choices, rendering them inadequate for axiological claims. Academic pursuits of empirical validation often reflect institutional preferences for certain values, with systemic biases in social sciences favoring interpretations aligned with egalitarian priors over causal or hierarchical alternatives, though such integrations rarely achieve falsifiability.^[103]

Measurement, Formalization, and Practical Critiques

In psychology, human values are commonly measured through self-report instruments designed to capture motivational priorities. Shalom Schwartz's theory identifies ten basic values—such as power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security—arranged in a circular structure reflecting motivational conflicts and compatibilities.^[74] These are assessed using tools like the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), where respondents rate the similarity of short verbal portraits to themselves on a scale, or the earlier Schwartz Value Survey (SVS), which rates the importance of value items as guiding principles.^[73] Empirical validation across over 80 countries demonstrates reliability, with values forming four higher-order dimensions: openness to change versus conservation, and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence.^[104] However, self-reports are susceptible to social desirability bias and cultural framing effects, as respondents may overstate socially approved values like benevolence while underreporting power.^[105] Behavioral measures, such as observed choices in experimental economics or neuroscientific indicators like fMRI activation in reward centers, offer alternatives but face challenges in isolating value from confounding factors like habit or context.^[106] In economics, values are proxied via revealed preferences, inferring utility from market choices under budget constraints, though this assumes rationality and ignores unobservable intrinsic motivations.^[107] Formalization of value theory often employs axiomatic frameworks to represent preferences as utility functions. In decision theory, the von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility theorem derives a cardinal utility function from four axioms: completeness (all alternatives comparable), transitivity (consistent rankings), continuity (probabilistic mixtures feasible), and independence (preferences invariant to common components).^[108] This allows quantification of value under uncertainty, where expected utility sums probabilities weighted by outcomes' utilities, enabling formal analysis of risk attitudes—concave functions indicate risk aversion.^[109] Philosophical formalizations, such as those in formal axiology, treat value as a structured system akin to logic, with scales for intrinsic worth, though these remain abstract and less empirically integrated.^[58] Economic value theory extends this to exchange values, modeling prices as marginal utilities in general equilibrium, but relies on ordinal rankings for interpersonal aggregation to avoid cardinal measurement issues.^[110] Practical critiques highlight limitations in both measurement and formalization. Self-report scales like PVQ yield ordinal data prone to inconsistency, with test-retest reliability around 0.7-0.8 but vulnerability to wording effects yielding varying cross-cultural alignments.^[111] Utility axioms fail empirically; the Allais paradox (1953) shows violations of independence, as people prefer certain gains over probabilistic ones inconsistently, suggesting descriptive models like prospect theory better capture actual behavior via reference-dependent values and loss aversion.^[112] Interpersonal utility comparisons, essential for policy like cost-benefit analysis, lack a verifiable metric, rendering cardinal aggregation arbitrary and susceptible to ethical biases in weighting.^[113] Incommensurability critiques argue diverse values—e.g., liberty versus equality—defy unified scaling, as quantitative trade-offs ignore qualitative conflicts, leading to reductive policy errors like overvaluing monetizable goods at nature's or cultural heritage's expense.^[114] These issues underscore that while formal models facilitate computation, they often abstract away causal complexities, such as evolutionary roots of values or contextual dependencies, prioritizing tractability over realism.^[115]

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In stock Free deliveryFirst published in 1963, Varieties of Goodness presents analysis of the concept of value and its relations with the neighbouring concepts of fact and norm.
[96]
Relativism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Sep 11, 2015 · Relativists argue that beliefs and values get their justification or truth only relative to specific epistemic systems or practices (see Kusch ...
[97]
Moral Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Critics claim that relativists typically exaggerate the degree of diversity among cultures since superficial differences often mask underlying shared agreements ...
[98]
An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values
The theory identifies ten basic personal values that are recognized across cultures and explains where they come from. At the heart of the theory is the idea ...
[99]
Universals in the Content and Structure of Values - ScienceDirect.com
This chapter addresses the universals in the content and structure of values, concentrating on the theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries.
[100]
Can an 'Ought' be Derived from an 'Is'? | Issue 130 - Philosophy Now
Can an 'ought' be derived from an 'is'? There is no difficulty about this. Think of things that human beings should do, like taking special care of children.Missing: axiology | Show results with:axiology
[101]
Ewing's Case Against Naturalistic Theories of Value - jstor
There he lists six general objections to naturalism. These sometimes have the aspect of arguments to prove such naturalism false (b), and sometimes that of an ...
[102]
The idea of a theory of values and the metaphor of value-landscapes
Feb 14, 2024 · American social scientists and psychologists, inspired by philosophers such as Spangler, Morris and Dewey, foremost with Allport, Rokeach, ...Missing: key | Show results with:key<|control11|><|separator|>
[103]
The Vagueness of Integrating the Empirical and the Normative
Nov 8, 2023 · The integration of normative analysis with empirical data often remains unclear despite the availability of many empirical bioethics ...
[104]
Biases in the quantitative measurement of values for public decisions
Biases include ignoring quantity, being sensitive to cost, and focusing on moral opinions rather than consequences. Measures are insensitive to the quantity of ...
[105]
Measuring the Four Higher-Order Values in Schwartz's Theory
The 10 basic values can be reliably assigned to four higher-order dimensions: Openness to Change, Conservation, Self-Transcendence, and Self-Enhancement.
[106]
An Empirical Comparison of Human Value Models - PMC
Human values are often defined as abstract ideals that guide people's behavior (Schwartz, 1992; Maio, 2010; Fischer, 2017). Here, we describe value models that ...<|separator|>
[107]
A New Empirical Approach to Intercultural Comparisons of Value ...
Schwartz and colleagues have theorized and shown empirical support for the existence of 10 basic individual values (Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz and Boehnke, 2004).
[108]
Schwartz Human Values and the Economic Performance - JASSS
Schwartz introduced the concept of ten different values that are grouped into four higher order values: openness to change, conservation, self-transcendence, ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[109]
[PDF] An Axiomatic Development of Utility Functions1
The utility function maps from bundles that the agent might con- sume, to the real line. The utility function is convenient: it can be maximized and manipulated ...Missing: value formalization
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An axiomatic approach to choice under uncertainty with catastrophic ...
The axioms formalize the properties of orders defined on sets of uncertain events; the orders are then used to rank or evaluate risky outcomes. The structure of ...
[111]
Value Theory - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Theory of value is a generic term that encompasses all the theories within economics that attempt to explain the exchange value or price of goods and services.
[112]
Analysis of the third-order structuring of Shalom Schwartz's theory of ...
Shalom Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values is one of the most commonly used and tested transcultural theories in the field of behavioural research.
[113]
An axiomatic formalization of bounded rationality based on a utility ...
Jul 6, 2010 · Here we propose an axiomatic framework for bounded decision-making that considers resource costs. Agents are formalized as probability measures ...
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[PDF] PROBLEMS OF VALUE MEASUREMENT
We don't know how to measure the values of decisions today, and, until we do, it would be foolish to agree to any commitment once and for all. This point can be ...
[115]
The value of value theory for ecological economics - PubMed Central
Aug 25, 2020 · Value theory forms the bedrock of several economic paradigms. It shapes how economists think about the purpose and functioning of the system as a whole.
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[PDF] value can it be measured? - Fraser Institute
Although Menger provided a correct theory of value in 1871, ancient errors clearly die very hard. Fallacious and erroneous conceptions of value inevitably.