Value theory encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how, why, and to what degree humans should value things, whether the thing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. This investigation began in ancient philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the, where it is called axiology Axiology is the philosophical study of value. It is either the collective term for ethics and aesthetics—philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of value—or the foundation for these fields, and thus similar to value theory and meta-ethics. The term was first used in the early 20th century by Paul Lapie, in 1902, and E. von or ethics Ethics is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality — that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, justice, virtue, etc. Early philosophical investigations sought to understand good and evil Theories of moral goodness inquire into what sorts of things are good, and what the word "good" really means in the abstract. As a philosophical concept, goodness might represent a hope that natural love be continuous, expansive, and all-inclusive. In a monotheistic religious context, it is by this hope that an important concept of God, and the concept of "the good". Today much of value theory is scientifically Science is, in its broadest sense, any systematic knowledge that is capable of resulting in a correct prediction or reliable outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique, technology, or practice empirical The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment. A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. It is usually differentiated from the philosophic, recording what people do value and attempting to understand why they value it in the context of psychology Psychology is the study of human or animal mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychological research can be considered either basic or applied. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in, sociology Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter, and economics Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek οἰκονομία from οἶκος (oikos, "house") + νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house(hold)". Current economic.

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, to say that "Mary is a morally good person" might involve a different sense of "good" than the one used in the sentence "Wow, that was some good food".

Ethics tend to be focused on moral goods rather than natural goods, while economics tends to be interested in the opposite. However, both moral and natural goods are equally relevant to goodness and value theory, which is more general in scope.

Psychology

In psychology Psychology is the study of human or animal mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychological research can be considered either basic or applied. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in, value theory refers to the study of the manner 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 behavior may be guided (or fail to be guided) by certain values and judgments, and how values emerge at different stages of human development (see e.g. the work by Lawrence Kohlberg Lawrence Kohlberg was an American psychologist born in Bronxville, New York, who served as a professor at the University of Chicago, as well as Harvard University. Having specialized in research on moral education and reasoning, he is best known for his theory of stages of moral development. A close follower of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive and Kohlberg's stages of moral development Kohlberg's stages of moral development constitute an adaptation of a psychological theory originally conceived of by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Lawrence Kohlberg, while a psychology postgraduate student at the University of Chicago, expanded and developed this theory throughout the course of his life.)

In psychotherapy Psychotherapy, or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living and counseling, eliciting and clarifying the values of the patient can play an important role to help him/her orient or reorient himself or herself in social life.

Sociology

In sociology Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter, 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.

Major Western theorists who stress the importance of values as an analytical independent variable include Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil "Max" Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist and political economist, who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the remit of sociology itself. Weber's major works dealt with the rationalization and so-called "disenchantment" which he associated with the rise of, Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973 and Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere, the topic of his first book entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the. Classical examples of sociological traditions which deny or downplay the question of values are institutionalism, historical materialism Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx . Marx himself never used the term but referred to his approach as "the materialist conception of history." Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the (including Marxism), behaviorism Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors. The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be, pragmatic oriented theories, postmodernism Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus and various objectivist-oriented theories.

Methods of study range from questionnaire surveys to participant observation.

Economics

Economic analysis emphasizes goods sought in a market and tends to use the consumer's choices as evidence (revealed preference Revealed preference theory, pioneered by American economist Paul Samuelson, is a method by which it is possible to discern the best possible option on the basis of consumer behavior. Essentially, this means that the preferences of consumers can be revealed by their purchasing habits. Revealed preference theory came about because the theories of) that various products are of value. In this view, religious or political struggle over what "goods" are available in the marketplace is inevitable, and consensus Consensus is defined in English as, firstly - general agreement and, secondly - group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its origin in a Latin word meaning literally to feel together 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 In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market. The other three aspects are use value, value and price), versus perceived intrinsic and experiential goods to the buyer. A strict service economy Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments. One is the increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. Services account for a higher percentage of US GDP than 20 years ago. The current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer manufacturers than in previous 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 Substance use disorders include substance abuse and substance dependence. In DSM-IV, the conditions are formally diagnosed as one or the other, but it has been proposed that DSM-5 combine the two into a single condition called "Substance-use disorder". The issue of addiction also brings up the distinction between economic and moral goods, where an economic good is whatever stimulates economic growth Economic growth is the increase of per capita gross domestic product or other measure of aggregate income. It is often measured as the rate of change in GDP. Economic growth refers only to the quantity of goods and services produced. For instance, some claim that cigarettes A Cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well. Most modern manufactured cigarettes are filtered are a "good" in the economic sense, as their production can employ tobacco Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, it is used in some medicines. It is most commonly used as a recreational drug, and is a valuable cash crop for countries such as Cuba, China and United States growers and doctors who treat lung cancer Lung cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. This growth may lead to metastasis, which is the invasion of adjacent tissue and infiltration beyond the lungs. The vast majority of primary lung cancers are carcinomas of the lung, derived from epithelial cells. Lung cancer, the most common cause of cancer-related death. Many people^[who?] 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 In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market. The other three aspects are use value, value and price, even though it may have a negative public good In economics, a public good is a good that is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Non-rivalry means that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and non-excludability that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good. In the real world, there may be no such thing as an or even be bad for a person's body (not the same as "bad for the person" necessarily - consider the issue of suicide Suicide is the act of a human being intentionally causing his or her own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair, or attributed to some underlying mental disorder which includes depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism and drug abuse. Financial difficulties, interpersonal relationships and other undesirable situations play.) Most economists, however, consider policies which create make-work jobs A make-work job is a job which has less final benefit than the job costs to support. Make-work jobs are similar to workfare, but are publicly offered on the job market and have otherwise normal employment requirements to have a poor foundation economically.

In Ecological Economics Ecological economics is a transdisciplinary field of academic research that aims to address the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems over time and space. It is distinguished from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment, by its treatment of the economy as a subsystem 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 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 Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary, whose ideas played a significant role in the development of modern communism and socialism. Marx summarized his approach in the first line of chapter one of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848: "'s Labour Theory of Value The labor theories of value are economic theories of value according to which the values of commodities are related to the labor needed to produce them and the 'Emergy Embodied energy is defined as the available energy that was used in the work of making a product. Embodied energy is an accounting methodology which aims to find the sum total of the energy necessary for an entire product lifecycle. This lifecycle includes raw material extraction, transport, manufacture, assembly, installation, disassembly,' 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.

Ethics and Axiology

Intuitively, theories of value must be important to ethics Ethics is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality — that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, justice, virtue, etc. A number of useful distinctions have been made by philosophers in the treatment of value.

Intrinsic and instrumental value

Many people find it useful to distinguish instrumental value Instrumental value is the value of objects, both physical objects and abstract objects, not as ends-in-themselves but a means of achieving something else. It is often contrasted with items of intrinsic value and intrinsic values Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", as an intrinsic property. An object with intrinsic value may be regarded as an end or end-in-itself, first discussed by Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a in the "Republic". An instrumental value is worth having as a means towards getting something else that is good (e.g., a radio is instrumentally good in order to hear music). An intrinsically valuable thing is worth having for itself, not as a means to something else. It is giving value intrinsic and extrinsic properties An intrinsic property is a property that an object or a thing has of itself, independently of other things, including its context. An extrinsic property is a property that depends on a thing's relationship with other things. For example, mass is a physical intrinsic property of any physical object, whereas weight is an extrinsic property that.

Intrinsic and instrumental goods are not mutually exclusive categories. Some things are both good in themselves, and also good for getting other things that are good. "Understanding science" may be such a good, being both worthwhile in and of itself, and as a means of achieving other goods.

A prominent argument in environmental ethics Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world. It exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including law, sociology, theology, economics, ecology and geography, made by writers like Aldo Leopold Aldo Leopold was an American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac (1949), which has sold over a million copies. Influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation, his ethics of 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.

Pragmatism and contributory goodness

John Dewey (1859-1952) in his book Theory of Valuation saw goodness as the outcome of ethic valuation, a continuous balancing of "ends in view." An end in view was 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, roughly similar to an object with relative intrinsic value.

His empirical approach had absolute intrinsic value denial, not accepting intrinsic value as an inherent or enduring property of things. He saw it as an illusory product of our continuous valuing activity as purposive beings. When held across only some contexts, Dewey held that goods are only intrinsic relative to a situation. When across all contexts, goodness is best understood as instrumental, with no contrasting intrinsic goodness. In other words, Dewey claimed that anything can only be of intrinsic value if it is a contributory good.

Another improvement is to distinguish 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, and good as such, but is far better as part of a prepared meal. Providing a good outside this context is not delivery of what is expected. 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

For more information, see the main article, Immanuel Kant.

The thinking of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) 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. For example, 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 as 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." From this, and a few other axioms, Kant developed a moral system that would apply to any "praiseworthy person." (See Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, third section, 446-[447].)

Kantian philosophers believe that any general definition of goodness must define goods that are categorical in the sense that Kant intended.

See also

• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Ultimate importance
• Morality
• Axiology
• Normative science
  • Aesthetics
  • Ethics
  • Logic
• Summum bonum
• Value-added theory
• Cultural Institutions Studies
• Intuitionism
• Law of value

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