Value theory

Value theory concerns itself with the worth, utility, trading or economic value, moral value, legal value, quantitative or aesthetic value of people and things - or the combination of all these.

Origins

Research suggests both human beings and at least some other sentient organisms can hold values, which express themselves in behavioural dispositions - the predisposition to act by choice in a certain way, when faced with a certain condition or stimulus which permits different responses. The expression of this predisposition ranges from very primitive behavioural routines, to very complex ones which may be difficult to detect or elucidate.

It would thus appear that values are ultimately rooted in survival instincts, attracting a living organism to something, or repelling it from something else, but values become clearly articulated and consciously acted upon, only in the context of social organisation, and values typically presuppose consciousness of some sort which goes beyond instincts and conditioned responses.

Characteristics

Values are implicitly related to a degree of behavioural freedom or autonomy by organisms which goes beyond a conditioned response; values steer or guide the organism, on the basis of internally chosen options. Thus, values imply the (conscious) prioritising of different behavioural alternatives which are perceived to be possible for the living organism. Conversely, value-conflicts can disorient the behaviour of the organism, throwing it out of balance.

Values are at the basis of all moral, political and economic behaviour. Individual values may be contrasted with social values, but individual values may mean nothing, unless they are socially understood, accepted and acknowledged. The ability to form individual values usually has social presuppositions, and their formation involves a learning process, communication process or socialisation process of some sort.

Distinctions

Human beings constantly act on the basis of explicit or implicit valuations, but those valuations may have both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Thus, something may be valued in a different way from something else, but something may be valued also more or less than something else.

The criteria implied often suggest a scheme of identification, discrimination and generalisation of values, and a value hierarchy or order of preference - which may be implicit or explicit.

A distinction is normally drawn between personal values, the values of a social group, and the value of things (objects). Thus, values may also appear as objective (existing independently of the individual subject, or imposed on him or her) or subjective (a personal or group perception).

Values may also be positive or negative, and positively or negatively formulated. Thus a person's dislike of something may indicate that he does not value it, but it may also imply that he likes something else.

Philosophy

In philosophy, value theory (or axiology) concerns itself with the notion of goodness. It ranges over ethics and meta-ethics, concerning the morally good, aesthetics, concerning the artistically good or the beautiful, and epistemology, including theory of (good) justification. To this, one might add social goodness and considerations relating to economics and political science.

Ethics and aesthetics commonly consider intrinsic goodness and these lead to very different kinds of statements. On the one hand, one might claim that one prefers Beethoven to Bon Jovi, which is a factual claim about what one prefers but one might also say that it is true that Beethoven is in fact better than Bon Jovi, which seems to be a claim about the intrinsic value of their music.

But values also play a role in the philosophical study of logic and logical systems, and in the theory of choices, decisions and judgements.

Economics

In Economics, value theory is concerned with the economic valuation of goods, assets, services and labour. Two main theories can be distinguished: objective theories (including the labour theory of value) and subjective theories (including marginal utility theory).

Objetive theories emphasize that objects of value have a socially and technically established production cost or economic value which exists independently of the value which a particular individual may attach to it (see also law of value and cost-of-production theory of value). Because of that fact, prices will be negotiable only to a limited extent.

Subjective theories by contrast emphasize that the value of a good depends on the intensity of needs, appreciations or wants by consumers, as shown by the price they are prepared to pay for it, or are able to negotiate.

These two theories may each validly apply to a different range of goods and services in different contexts, and they may be connected by means of a relational theory which aims to specify value in terms of the relations among people, among people and things, or among things.

Some economic values may pertain only to people, others only to things. When human values are improperly imputed to things, or the values of things are improperly attributed to people, this is a category mistake or an instance of reification.

Value theory in economics also features in estimating economic aggregates and the comparison of different price regimes. For different purposes, different valuation methods may be more or less appropriate, but important questions are raised about the validity of different methods of valuing economic goods.

Psychology

In psychology, value theory refers to the study of the way in which human beings develop, assert and believe in certain values, and act or fail to act on them.

Attempts are made to explain experimentally why human beings prefer or choose some things over others, how personal behaviour may be guided (or fail to be guided) by certain values and judgements, and how values emerge at different stages of human development (see e.g. the work by Lawrence Kohlberg and Kohlberg's stages of moral development).

In psychotherapy and counselling, eliciting and clarifying the values of the client can play an important role to help the client orient or reorient himself or herself in social life.

Sociology

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 prioritise different kinds of values influencing social behaviour. Major Western theorists include Max Weber, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Jurgen Habermas, and methods of study range from questionnaire surveys to participant observation.

Political science

In political science, value theory is concerned with the way political ideology is formed, systematised and acted upon by political actors, and how political values express or fail to express political interests. This may be studied e.g. at the hand of opinion polls, attitudinal surveys, public behaviour and published statements.

Anthropology

In anthropology, value theory refers to hypotheses in the study of how a community of people forms and asserts its common values, as implied by its artifacts, economic exchange, gift-giving, and social relations. This may be studied for instance by participant observation or by looking at the archeological record.

Real Estate and accounting

In real estate and accounting, value theory is concerned with the principles or assumptions used in the valuation or assessment of physical or financial assets. In order to group, aggregate and relate price information, some notion of value must be applied in a consistent way.

Law

In law, value theory is an aspect of jurisprudence which aims to clarify the values which apply, or should be considered, so that justice is served.

Mathematics

In mathematics, value theory refers sometimes to extreme value theory concerned with outliers in a distribution, number theory concerned with the properties of numbers, or certain types of game theory which study human preferences, interests and priorities in interactive systems providing different behavioural options or possibilities.

Art

In artistic pursuits, value theory is concerned with the ways that values are expressed in, or perceived in works of art, and the relation between art and (the moral life of) society.

Architecture

In architecture, value theory is concerned with the way human values are expressed or reflected in the specific, intentional design or construction of all sorts of structures and buildings.

References

There is more discussion about philosophy and goodness at the page about Goodness and value theory.