Christian von Ehrenfels was a student of both Franz Brentano and Carl Menger and his thinking on value theory was inspired both by Brentano’s descriptive psychology and by the subjective theory of economic value advanced by Menger, the founder of the Austrian school of economics. Value, for Ehrenfels, is a function of desire, and we ascribe value to those things which we either do in fact desire, or would desire if we were not convinced (...) of their existence. He asserts that the needed theoretical understanding of values is to be achieved by generalizing economic laws of valuation to apply to value in general. The law of marginal utility, for example, is a law to the effect that the n+1st sample of a good which I receive is ceteris paribus less valuable than the nth sample (imagine that the samples in question are, for example, a series of identical ham sandwiches). The essay describes how Ehrenfels provides on this basis an account of the different types of values, both intrinsic and non-intrinsic. It outlines also Ehrenfels views on the problem of interpersonal value-comparisons and on the struggle for survival between different values of different types. (shrink)

Economy and Theology: Cusanus' Theory of Value, a study from the field of the history of philosophy, responds to the present-day interest in what is referred to as economic theology. This study aims to show that value (valor), one of the fundamental concepts of contemporary philosophy and economics, has its genealogy in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa. Starting from the economic context (the concept of price/pretium), Cusanus proposes the theory of value that, on the (...) one hand, is objectively rooted in the Divine act of creation (God as the Minter) and, on the other hand, requires reading by human beings (human mind as a banker). While this theory appears in Cusanus' late work The Bowling-Game, it is underpinned by his theory of knowledge, theory of human beings and human cognition against the background of his vision of the universe. Thus, the aim of the book is to try to answer the question about the role and tasks of human being as a principal player in economic and social game. This description of human position emerges from the creative tension between human philosophical and theological reflection and certain economic solutions. (shrink)

This book explores the theory of value structure, or axiology, in metaethics and defends the thesis that aspects of “better than” comparisons may outrank each other and that value cannot always be summed up neatly.

Excerpt from A Study in the Theory of Value The thesis which I wish to defend in the present essay is a very common one, believed, I think, by most people, but usually only approximately and only half-heartedly, and expressed vaguely if expressed at all. Some such belief is in fact present whenever we reflect upon acts that stir our interest; but the belief baldly expressed in propositions sounds fanciful or weak or sentimental, and we avoid pronouncing it (...) clearly in much the same way as that in which we hurry over an expression in an unfamiliar language - partly from modesty, but. Mostly from fear of appearing ridiculous and from inner conviction Of ignorance. Our belief, in other words, not Only seems to us sentimental and weak when we approach the formulation of it in a creed, but it actually is sentimental and weak when thus formulated, and this for the reason that we have not taken the trouble to make the formulation accurate or definite. On the one hand we are afraid of seeming. Sentimental; on the other hand we do not know what our belief really is, nor what definite formula embodying it will stand the test of logical criticism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that all value is rooted in the interests of valuing beings. If something satisfies an interest of a valuing entity by contributing to its well-being in some way, then it has value. Anything that fails to satisfy any interests is entirely lacking in value. I defend this conception of value by showing that the usual arguments directed against this kind of view are lacking of force, and by considering various other theories (...) of value and showing that they suffer from serious problems. Finally, I clarify some important distinctions between intrinsic, extrinsic, inherent, and instrumental value. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Qualitative Hedonism Objections to Mill's Qualitative Hedonism: Internal Inconsistency and Value Pluralism The Judgment of Competent Agents: Self‐Development and Value Measurement Self‐Development and Virtue Ethics Further Reading.

Originally published in 1987 and re-issued in 2020 with a new Preface, this book presents and elaborates interrelated solutions to a number of problems in moral philosophy, from the location of intrinsic value and the nature of a worthwhile life, via the limits of obligation and the nature of justice, to the status of moral utterances. After developing a biocentric account of moral standing, the author locates worthwhile life in the development of the generic capacities of a creature, whether (...) human or nonhuman, and presents an account of relative intrinsic value which later generates a theory of interspecific justice. This value-theory also informs a consequentialist understanding of obligation, of moral rightness and of supererogation. The understanding thus supplied is shown to cope with the problems of integrity, of justice and of the 'Repugnant Conclusion' in population ethics. A cognitivist account of ethical conclusions such as those so far reached is then defended against non-cognitivist and relativist objections and a far-reaching naturalist theory is defended, integrating earlier conclusions with an account of the logic of the fundamental ethical concepts. This wide-ranging volume which maps the whole area of morality is thoroughly argued with reference both to contemporary philosophical developments and to classical theories. (shrink)

The thesis of this book is to develop a theory of value covering all kinds of values, based on my unified utilitarian theory. It is unique and is different from all traditional and existing theories of value. Like the views of most psychologists and decision-scientists, value is asserted to be subjective in nature because value exists only for a subject. Value and value judgment are considered statistical in nature in three dimensions, namely (...) in the dimensions of subject, object, and judge. This theory covers a modified von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theory as an integral part. The three conceptions of utility held by philosophers, economicsts, and decision-scientists are unified. The traditional and conventional classification of value into intrinsic and instrumental, which may lead to confusion, misunderstanding, and circularity, is not used. Instead, a classification based on the classification of good things in life according to the principle of exchangeability and replaceability is emphasized and used. A decision-theoretic approach is taken for the study of actions in life. All the actions in a person's life are for the pursuit of values, and all the values pursued are related, directly or indirectly, closely or remotely, to a life plan. Thus, this utilitarian general theory of value eventually leads to a philosophy of life, which is also consequential, teleological, and utilitarian. (shrink)

According to a widely accepted reading of the "Ethics," Spinoza subscribes to a desire-satisfaction theory of value. A desire-satisfaction theory says that what has value is the satisfaction of one’s desires and whatever leads to the satisfaction of one’s desires. In this paper I argue that this standard reading is incorrect, and I show that in Spinoza’s view the foundation of what is truly valuable is the perfection of a person’s essence, not the satisfaction of a (...) person’s desires. (shrink)

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

A prominent member of the second generation of Cambridge Keynesians, Luigi Pasinetti has been a key player in the development of neo-Ricardian economics as well. Having studied under Piero Sraffa at Cambridge, he developed a mathematical representation of Ricardo's theory of value and distribution, as well as the reswitching problem in neoclassical capital theory: thus making him a leader of the British Cambridge side during the Cambridge Capital Controversy. Since leaving Cambridge for Rome, he has become particularly (...) interested in structural change, i.e. the responses of multi-sectoral models of the economy to technical changes. This book draws together Pasinetti's main contributions in the field of value theory. (shrink)

Adopting a dispositional theory of value promises to deliver a lot of theoretical goodies. One recurring problem for dispositional theories of value, though, is a problem about nonconvergence. If being a value is being disposed to elicit response R in us, what should we say if it turns out that not everybody is disposed to have R to the same things? One horn of the problem here is a danger of the view collapsing into an error (...) theory—of it turning out, on account of the diversity of agents' relevant dispositions, that nothing is really a value, since nothing is disposed to elicit R in everybody. Alternatively, there is a danger of an objectionable fragmentation of value, according to which there is no such thing as a value simpliciter, but only valuesme and valuesyou, valuesus and valuesthem. I advocate a de se relativist version of a dispositional theory of value. If we go for this sort of de-se-ified dispositional theory, we get to keep our theoretical goodies, but we avoid the problem of nonconvergence that leads to a danger of either collapse into an error theory, or else talking-past, and a loss of common subject matter. (shrink)

This dissertation is an ontological investigation of value. The thesis is this: Value is a moment founded on a real entity and, in this sense, value is real. I argue that this thesis is true for all objects in the domain of value by looking at three distinct categories of value: economic value, aesthetic value, and moral value. And I demonstrate by means of advancing definitions, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for (...) each of these three categories of value, that this thesis is the essential glue that holds all values in the realm of social reality as part of the genus value. There are two restrictions to this thesis. One restriction is that the real existence of value is possible only if there is a relation of correspondence between a value judgment and its referent. A false value judgment, then, fails to correspond to its intentional target so there is no possible value. The other restriction is that the value entities are either concrete objects that have at least temporally come into being, or actual states of affairs with a spatial and temporal location. Both of these restrictions combined imply that no future states of affairs, or objects which either have not or cannot come into being, can be objects of value. This dissertation draws from sources in the Central European philosophical tradition. (shrink)

The paper deals with neo-Kantianism and the value theory in Hungarian philosophy on the threshold of the 20th century. It shows how neo-Kantianism contributed to the Hungarian philosophy’s being professionalized as well as the transformations of neo-Kantianism in the works of its leading representatives. It also offers a detailed analysis of the value theory of K Böhm, who created the first original Hungarian philosophical system.

Moral philosophy and education, by H. D. Aiken.--The moral sense and contributory values, by C. I. Lewis.--Realms of value, by P. W. Taylor.--The role of value theory in education, by J. D. Butler.--Does ethics make a difference? By K. Price.--Educational value statements, by C. Beck.--Educational values and goals, by W. K. Frankena.--Conflicts in values, by H. S. Broudy.--Levels of valuational discourse in education, by J. F. Perry and P. G. Smith.--Education and some moves toward a (...) class='Hi'>value methodology, by A. S. Clayton.--You can't pray a lie, by M. Twain.--Men, machines, and morality, by J. F. Soltis.--Teaching and telling, by I. Scheffler.--Reason and habit, by R. S. Peters.--The two moralists of the child, by J. Piaget.--Causes and morality, by R. S. Peters.--On education and morals, by R. W. Sleeper.--Moral autonomy and reasonableness, by T. D. Perry. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers interested in value theory appear to be largely concerned with questions of the following sort:What is value?What is the meaning of the word ‘good’?Does the attribution of value to an object have a cognitive, or merely an emotive, significance?The first question is metaphysical; to ask it is analogous to asking in physics:What is matter?What is electricity?The others are generally treated as semantical questions; to ask them is analogous to asking in statistics:What is the meaning (...) of the word ‘probable’?Does an attribution of probability express an objective fact, or merely a subjective attitude? (shrink)

The notion of a D-ring, generalizing that of a differential or a difference ring, is introduced. Quantifier elimination and a version of the Ax-Kochen-Eršov principle is proven for a theory of valued D-fields of residual characteristic zero.

Christian von Ehrenfels was a student of both Franz Brentano and Carl Menger and his thinking on value theory was inspired both by Brentano’s descriptive psychology and by the subjective theory of economic value advanced by Menger, the founder of the Austrian school of economics. Value, for Ehrenfels, is a function of desire, and we ascribe value to those things which we either do in fact desire, or would desire if we were not convinced (...) of their existence. He asserts that the needed theoretical understanding of values is to be achieved by generalizing economic laws of valuation to apply to value in general. The law of marginal utility, for example, is a law to the effect that the n+1st sample of a good which I receive is ceteris paribus less valuable than the nth sample (imagine that the samples in question are, for example, a series of identical ham sandwiches). The essay describes how Ehrenfels provides on this basis an account of the different types of values, both intrinsic and non-intrinsic. It outlines also Ehrenfels views on the problem of interpersonal value-comparisons and on the struggle for survival between different values of different types. (shrink)

Joseph Raz presents a penetrating exploration of the interdependence of value, reason, and the will. These essays illuminate a wide range of questions concerning fundamental aspects of human thought and action. Engaging Reason is a summation of many years of original, compelling, and influential work by a major contemporary philosopher.

This chapter discusses different accounts of how to aggregate individual advantages, including utilitarianism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and leximin. It distinguishes between these principles in terms of conditions such as the Pareto principle, strong separability, relationality, and the Pigou-Dalton principle of transfer. Furthermore, it accounts for how these distributive principles may be justified and for the main strengths and weaknesses of each. In particular, it focuses on the extent to which these principles violate the separateness of persons and whether they invite the (...) leveling down objection, and if so how damaging such violations and objections are. Finally, some general worries about aggregation are considered. (shrink)

Friedrich Albert Lange is usually regarded as a representative of physiological neo-Kantianism or as a forerunner of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. In this paper I try to reconstruct Lange’s theory of values to argue that his philosophy is better framed as an intermediate point in the development of the two-world theory (facts/values) between Hermann Lotze and Southwestern neo-Kantianism.

Bernard Mayo; XII*—A Correspondence Theory of Value, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 73, Issue 1, 1 June 1973, Pages 181–192, https://doi.org/10.

The pres ent book aims to exemplify the latter rather than the former method, and if it should prove tedious, that fault will be due in part, at least, to the ...

Veber's theory of value is based on his general classification of mental phenomena. Value-experiences constitute a special variety of emotional experiences: they have a pseudo-cognitive role; that is, they "perceive" values just as ordinary presentations perceive things and their properties. Veber also makes several distinctions between different types of value-perceiving emotions. Finally he discusses the kinds of objective correlates that these experiences have and thereby distinguishes between three types of value: thing-value, person-value and (...) hagiological value. He may be criticised for inconsistency, because he starts f r om the descriptive standpoint but ends up by legislating on how we ought to value persons. (shrink)