Values
David T. Ozar
The verb ‘‘to value,’’ like the nouns ‘‘value’’ and ‘‘values,’’ and the adjective ‘‘valuable,’’ have a wide range of meanings in ordinary speech be cause they are used in many different contexts. But all of these meanings and all uses of these words build on one central idea: to value some thing is to consider it a candidate for action aimed at achieving it. We speak and think most clearly, in other words, if we consider the verb ‘‘to value’’ as the primary guide to the meanings of these words. Then the adjective, ‘‘valuable,’’ tells us that someone values the thing so de scribed; and the nouns ‘‘value’’ and ‘‘values’’ pick out the characteristics that valuing focuses on, that is, the characteristics that make a thing a candidate for action aimed at achieving it. If we interpret these words in this way, then an un common but accurate synonym for ‘‘valuable’’ would be ‘‘choiceworthy’’ (a term borrowed here from Terrence Irwin’s translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics). It is difficult to think of any exact synonym for the more abstract nouns, ‘‘value’’ and ‘‘values,’’ although the word ‘‘good ness’’ sometimes means almost the same thing as ‘‘value.’’
The activity of valuing involves a valuer and something valued. The valuer must be the kind of being that acts and is drawn to action by characteristics in things. Thus, there is a link between talk of values and people’s motivations for acting (see motives). But valuing is not simply reactive; it involves judgment, and this is why a person can provide a satisfactory answer to the question, ‘‘Why did you do that?’’ by citing the value/values that the action is aimed at achieving. That is, values refer to people’s reasons for acting and their judgments about such reasons. This is why ethics, as the study of people’s judgments about what they ought to do, always has an important place for values (i.e., for the characteristics that people value and so aim to achieve in their actions) (see ethics).
In addition to a valuer, the activity of valuing also involves something valued. It is an intentional activity; that is, it is not wholly self contained in the valuer, but links the valuer to something else, to the thing valued, via the characteristics (values) in it which prompt or explain action aimed at achieving it. In this respect, statements about valuing are always, in part, descriptions of something, since they identify characteristics of things that the valuer takes to be real and worth acting for. But statements about valuing also serve as explanations of actions, as reasons offered to other persons to explain why a certain action was done in the past or is being done in the present or is being considered for the future. In this way statements about valuing always play a normative function as well, showing other persons who want to understand our actions why these actions are reasonable (see normative/descriptive).
Things valued can be of many sorts. But the characteristics of things that valuing picks out are characteristics that make action worthwhile. So it is appropriate to ask if there is any class of characteristics that is fundamentally worthwhile to act for, or whether the valuableness of things – what is worth acting for – is completely variable. Answering this question requires a three step sorting process.
First, some things are valued only ‘‘instrumentally,’’ that is, as means to other things. For example, I value taking the subway in order to get to my destination. I value getting to my destination, let us say, in order to shop for something; and I value shopping in order, in one possible scenario, to give my friend a birthday gift; and so on. It seems obvious, however, that this chain of explanations cannot go on forever and still be an adequate explanation. Instead, we expect to find, at the end of such a chain, some thing that is not valued for the sake of something else; that is, something (or things) valued ‘‘for its own sake,’’ as we commonly express it. In philosophers’ terminology, things valued for the sake of something else are called ‘‘instrumentally’’ valuable; and a thing valued ‘‘for its own sake’’ is said to be ‘‘intrinsically valuable.’’
Second, is there any common characteristic among the things that people consider intrinsic ally valuable? This is a disputed point. But a good case can be made that, for humans, only experiences are intrinsically valuable, and that all the non human things that humans value, and all other characteristics of humans besides experiences that humans value, are all valued instrumentally and for the sake of certain kinds of experiences that these things are means to in various ways.
The third question is whether there is any pattern in the experiences that humans value intrinsically. Is there some fairly definite set of experiences that are intrinsically valued by humans generally and that are the only ones that humans generally value intrinsically? This is a highly disputed question that has been writ ten about, pro and con, by philosophers, psych ologists, and other theorists about the human condition, as well as by novelists, playwrights, and many others for centuries. There are some very plausible candidates for experiences that all people, at least all people of mature years and sound mind, intrinsically value. Among these are: pleasure (or certain kinds of pleasure); self determination or autonomy; certain kinds of human relationships (e.g., just exchanges; fulfil ling one’s social role; friendship; love); and a sense of integrity or of the unity of the self (see integrity; justice; roles and role morality; trust).
Those who argue that there is no such pattern can point to the wide range of things that people value in daily life. But much of this diversity of human aims disappears once these aims are sorted out specifically in terms of the experiences that people intrinsically value. A more serious objection for those who see a pattern in these intrinsic values concerns the qualifier: ‘‘at least all people of mature years and sound mind.’’ Is this a legitimate qualifier or a way of avoiding evidence contrary to the proposed pat tern?
The judgments people offer to explain their actions have been of interest to philosophers and other moral theorists for many centuries (see practical reasoning). One tradition of theorizing about these judgments has paid particular attention to value statements and to the characteristics of things they identify as choice worthy. This approach to moral theory is commonly called utilitarianism or consequentialism. But these theorists might very accurately be called ‘‘Value Maximizers,’’ because they hold that what a person morally ought to do in any situation in whichever course of action available to an actor will produce the maximum of intrinsic value (i.e., of experiences worth having for their own sake). These theorists describe human moral reflection at its best as a process of (1) evaluating alternative courses of action to deter mine what instrumental and then what intrinsic values they would yield (and what disvalues and hindrances to values as well), and for whom; and then (2) comparing these evaluations to deter mine which course of action yields the greatest value. On the value maximizers’ account of morality, this course of action is the one that the actor ought to do.
There have been many varieties of value maximizing moral theories. Some have held that each human ought to maximize values for self alone; others have seen morality as maximizing values for everyone affected by a course of action; and others have offered other, more com plex answers to the ‘‘for whom?’’ question. They have also differed in their views about what sorts of experiences are intrinsically valuable (see egoism, psychological egoism, and ethical egoism).
The other traditions of moral theorizing, on the other hand, consider valuing to have, not a central, but at best a subordinate role within sound moral reflection. They have consequently paid much less attention to value statements and to the characteristics that humans value in things, and have explained moral reflection in a variety of other ways.
See fairness; justice; Kantian ethics; liberalism; libertarianism; rights; virtue ethics