This paper aims to reconcile the phenomenology and metaphysics of value by proposing a cognitivist and metaphysically committed account of evaluation and value inspired, in part, by the phenomenological arguments of J. N. Findlay in relation to value. By the phenomenology of value I mean the affective—commendatory—character of evaluations such as when I describe something as good or bad, worthwhile or not worthwhile. Whilst this—subjective—aspect of evaluation is largely uncontested, there is much disagreement about the (...) cognitive and metaphysical status of our evaluations. The disagreement centers round two problems, which I call the intentionality problem and the metaphysical problem, respectively. These problems address whether evaluative feelings refer beyond themselves to objects and, if they do, about the character of the object to which they are directed. By drawing on and reconstructing an argument by Findlay, I argue that the affective character of evaluative experience has an intentional structure that takes the form of a judgement that is merited, or not, by its object. However, unlike Findlay, I offer a metaphysically-laden account of the distinction between evaluation and value by arguing that value properties are mind-independent dispositions that are realized in human cognitively-structured affectivity. (shrink)

Losing an arm to rescue a child from a burning building is supererogatory. But is losing an arm to save two children more supererogatory than losing two arms to save a single child? What factors make one act more supererogatory than another? I provide an innovative account of how to compare which of two acts is more supererogatory, and show the superiority of this account to its chief rival.

This chapter distinguishes two sorts of things we can say about objects, something descriptive, and evaluative. Both, Hare notes, have descriptive function in that they can be used to convey factual information. Value‐words, however, also have prescriptive meaning, and this meaning is primary to their descriptive meaning, because in contrast to its descriptive meaning, it remains constant in all uses and can also be employed to change the descriptive meaning of a class of objects. Finally, Hare notes that (...) class='Hi'>value‐words can be used with no commendatory meaning at all: the inverted commas use and the conventional use. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between metaethical reflection and value experience, and does so by focusing on robust realism. Robust realism is typically criticized for its ontological and epistemological commitments. In this paper, however, we hope to shed new critical light on the plausibility of the theory by using two concepts – ‘reification’ and ‘alienation’ – that have their origin in critical social theory. We use the concept of ‘reification’ as an interpretative lens to look at robust realism and (...) show that it is reifying in two respects: it turns values into things, and, correspondingly, turns human agents into disengaged observers of those things. This analysis is then used to argue that robust realism is alienating in the sense that it distances us from the world that presents itself to us in value experience, and that it separates us from what we call our engaged responsiveness. We also argue that its alienating effects give us good reason to reject the theory. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to understand how governance mechanisms in cross-sector collaborations (CSCs) for sustainability affect value creation and capture and subsequently the survival of this organizational form. Drawing on a longitudinal, participatory, single-case study of collaborative action in the textile industry, we identify three governance mechanisms—safeguarding, bundling and connecting—that coevolve with the rising and waning of collaborative tensions and the shifting levels of action in the CSC we studied. These mechanisms aided value creation and helped (...) facilitate private value capture. We integrate these insights into a process model that visualizes the interplay between governance mechanisms of tensions and systems of value creation and capture in CSCs for sustainability. Our study contributes to the cross-sector collaboration literature by providing a dynamic and nuanced understanding of how governance mechanisms influence outcomes in CSCs for sustainability. We also add to the business model for sustainability literature by theorizing the value creation and capture system of collaborative rather than individual organizations. Our findings have important implications for policymakers who fund collaborative organizations and practitioners who manage or participate in them. (shrink)

Is the purpose of political philosophy to articulate the moral values that political regimes would realize in a virtually perfect world and show what that implies for the way we should behave toward one another? That model of political philosophy, driven by an effort to draw a picture of an ideal political society, is familiar from the approach of John Rawls and others. Or is political philosophy more useful if it takes the world as it is, acknowledging the existence of (...) various morally non-ideal political realities, and asks how people can live together nonetheless? The latter approach is advocated by “realist” thinkers in contemporary political philosophy. In Value, Conflict, and Order, Edward Hall builds on the work of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Bernard Williams in order to establish a political realist’s theory of politics for the twenty-first century. The realist approach, Hall argues, helps us make sense of the nature of moral and political conflict, the ethics of compromising with adversaries and opponents, and the character of political legitimacy. In an era when democratic political systems all over the world are riven by conflict over values and interests, Hall’s conception is bracing and timely. (shrink)

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is an established method for integrating values into technical design. It has been applied to different technologies and, more recently, to artificial intelligence (AI). We argue that AI poses a number of challenges specific to VSD that require a somewhat modified VSD approach. Machine learning (ML), in particular, poses two challenges. First, humans may not understand how an AI system learns certain things. This requires paying attention to values such as transparency, explicability, and accountability. Second, (...) ML may lead to AI systems adapting in ways that ‘disembody’ the values embedded in them. To address this, we propose a threefold modified VSD approach: 1) integrating a known set of VSD principles (AI4SG) as design norms from which more specific design requirements can be derived; 2) distinguishing between values that are promoted and respected by the design to ensure outcomes that not only do no harm but also contribute to good; and 3) extending the VSD process to encompass the whole life cycle of an AI technology in order to monitor unintended value consequences and redesign as needed. We illustrate our VSD for AI approach with an example use case of a SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing app. (shrink)

This paper offers a partial defence of the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies. Unlike Epicurus and his present-day advocates, this defence relies not on a hedonistic or empiricist conception of value but on the concept of ‘existential’ value. Existential value is agent-relative value for which it is constitutive that it can be truly self-ascribed in the first person and present tense. From this definition, it follows that death (post-mortem non-existence), (...) while perhaps bad in some respects, cannot be an existential harm for the one who dies. This paper argues that existential goods are central to any explanation of why life appears good to us from a self-interested perspective, which means that death is not bad in the very respect in which life is most saliently good (from that perspective). A corresponding error theory shows why this truth is easily overlooked and explains why we tend to think that death is significantly worse than it really is. (shrink)

A theory of aesthetic value should explain what makes aesthetic value good. Current views about what makes aesthetic value good privilege the individual’s encounter with aesthetic value—listening to music, reading a novel, writing a poem, or viewing a painting. What makes aesthetic value good is its benefit to the individual appreciator. But engagement with aesthetic value is often a social, participatory matter: sharing and discussing aesthetic goods, imitating aesthetic agents, dancing, cooking, dining, or making (...) music together. This article argues that we should understand aesthetic value in a way that centers these social forms of aesthetic engagement. To this end, the article argues that there is a social practice of aesthetic valuing, characterized as a participatory practice governed by the value of aesthetic community, which engages us in the social development of our capacities for discretionary valuing and volitional openness. Current theories of aesthetic value have trouble capturing the character of the practice of aesthetic valuing, and this motivates a novel communitarian theory of aesthetic value: aesthetic value is what is worthy of engagement in the social practice of aesthetic valuing. (shrink)

A number of philosophers of medicine have attempted to provide analyses of health and disease in which the role that values play in those concepts is restricted. There are three ways in which values can be restricted in the concepts of health and disease. They can be: (i) eliminated, (ii) tamed or (iii) corralled. These three approaches correspond, respectively, to the work of Boorse, Lennox, and Wakefield. The concern of each of these authors is that if unrestricted values are allowed (...) to infect our concepts of health and disease, then anything could be construed as healthy or diseased. They believe that, if at all possible, such a result should be avoided. Unfortunately, as I argue, this result is unavoidable and such attempts to limit values in these concepts are destined to fail. I argue for this position by showing how each of these three attempts to provide value-restricted analyses of health and disease fail as analyses of the concepts of health and disease and that they fail because of their attempts to restrict the role of values in their accounts. I also show how, despite their best efforts, each of these analyses are, themselves, value-driven and value-laden. This leads to the conclusion that values infect our concepts of health and disease at all levels. (shrink)

Orsi and Garcia argue that fitting-attitude analysis of value is vulnerable to an explanatory objection. On FA-analysis, for an object to be valuable is for it to be a fitting target of an attitude—a pro-attitude if its value is positive and a con-attitude if it is negative. For different kinds of value different kinds of attitudes are fitting: desire for desirability, admiration for admirability, etc. To explain the fittingness relation we therefor need to appeal to the features (...) of the relevant attitude, but these seldom, if ever, are needed for explaining the object’s value. This explanatory disparity between the analysans and the analysandum implies that FA-analysis must be incorrect. In our reply to Orsi and Garcia, we provide a refutation of their objection. We argue that the features of a fitting attitude do have a right place in the explanation of an object’s value, even though they are not among the properties that make the object valuable. They help to explain this value-making relation itself. (shrink)

_Purpose_ of the article is to find out the main content and ways of embodying freedom as a value of the volunteer movement in the context of analyzing the social motivation of human behavior in general. _Theoretical basis._ The theoretical basis of the research is the philosophical and anthropological understanding of freedom as a person’s creative overcoming of obstacles to establish his or her eccentric essence. Such a vision is embedded, in particular, in Karl Jaspers’ philosophy of existence, Helmuth (...) Plessner’s philosophy of positioning in the world, and Paul Ricœur’s philosophy of rational choice of life path. _Originality__._ The importance of freedom as a value, as well as other social values, is revealed and specified through the analysis of the values of the volunteer movement. In the desire of people engaged in volunteer work to achieve freedom through other values, the content of freedom as a basis for self-reproduction of the individual, community and society is revealed. _Conclusions._ Representatives of various humanities and social sciences have distinct research interests in analyzing the values inherent in volunteers. As members of a certain society and certain communities in this society, volunteers do not act outside the economy, politics and other spheres of public life, but reveal their freedom through creative and non-standard solutions to economic, political, and other problems. At the same time, research psychologists focus attention on the personal self-realization of a person, theorists and practitioners of social work study volunteers’ desire to gain recognition from peers and other small social groups, and representatives of sociology, political science and other social sciences focus their attention on such socially significant values of volunteering as patriotism, solidarity, etc. The task of social philosophy is to justify the desire to contribute to the public good, which is common to all volunteers. Representatives of philosophical anthropology look for the best social intentions inherent in a person as a member of society in volunteering. Analysis of the values of volunteering as a motivator of human behavior provides knowledge of socially significant values inherent in every member of society to a greater or lesser extent. (shrink)

This study investigated the relationship between cultural value orientations and country-specific changes in mobility during the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim was to understand how cultural values relate to mobility behavior during the initial stages of the pandemic. The aggregated data include Schwartz's cultural orientations, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, number of Covid-19 cases per million, and mobility change during the Covid-19 pandemic (Google Mobility Reports; percentage decrease in retail and recreation mobility, transit station mobility, workplace mobility and percentage (...) mobility increase in residential areas). Regression analyses showed that, after controlling for economy and severity of disease, hierarchy was the primary factor reducing mobility, such as staying at home, and mobility in public spaces, such as avoiding retail and recreation sites (marginally significant). The results are discussed in the light of previous literature and the implications for social distancing measures. (shrink)

Abstract: The paper provides a general account of value relations. It takes its departure in a special type of value relation, parity, which according to Ruth Chang is a form of evaluative comparability that differs from the three standard forms of comparability: betterness, worseness and equal goodness. Recently, Joshua Gert has suggested that the notion of parity can be accounted for if value comparisons are interpreted as normative assessments of preference. While Gert's basic idea is attractive, the (...) way he develops it is flawed: His modeling of values by intervals of permissible preference strengths is inadequate. Instead, I provide an alternative modeling in terms of intersections of rationally permissible preference orderings. This yields a general taxonomy of all binary value relations. The paper concludes with some implications of this approach for rational choice. (shrink)

Know Thyself: The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge takes the reader on tour of the nature, value, and limits of self-knowledge. Mitchell S. Green calls on classical sources like Plato and Descartes, 20th-century thinkers like Freud, recent developments in neuroscience and experimental psychology, and even Buddhist philosophy to explore topics at the heart of who we are. The result is an unvarnished look at both the achievements and drawbacks of the many attempts to better know one's own self. (...) Key topics in this volume include: Knowledge - what it means to know, the link between wisdom and knowledge, and the value of living an "examined life" Personal identity - questions of dualism, bodily continuity, and personhood The unconscious - including the kind posited by psychoanalysis as well as the form proposed by recent research on the so-called adaptive unconscious Free will - if we have it, and the recent arguments from neuroscience challenging it Self-misleading - the ways we willfully deceive ourselves, and how this relates to empathy, peer disagreement, implicit bias, and intellectual humility Experimental psychology - considerations on the automaticity of emotion and other cognitive processes, and how they shape us This book is designed to be used in conjunction with the free 'Know Thyself' MOOC created through collaboration of the University of Connecticut's Project on Humility and Conviction in Public Life, and the University of Edinburgh's Eidyn research centre, and hosted on the Coursera platform. The book is also suitable as a text for interdisciplinary courses in the philosophy of mind or self-knowledge, and is highly recommended for anyone looking for a short overview of this fascinating topic. (shrink)

This article explored the role of personality disposition and value preference as predictors of social well-being in the context of ecological setting. Ecological contexts like rural and urban are critical, particularly in a developing country like India, because they represent significant disparities and variations in the lived experiences of the people. The participants ( n = 360) from the age range of 15–65 years (M = 33.50, SD = 11.99) were drawn from two ecological settings, that is, rural (Gorakhpur (...) Region, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India) and urban (National Capital Region of Delhi, India) and from both the genders. They completed the measures of social well-being, value preference and personality dispositions. The results showed that the different facets of social well-being were differentially related to the aspects of personality and value preference. Ecological setting had significant influence on the measures of personality disposition, value preference and social well-being. Regression analysis showed that except neuroticism, all other factors of personality had consistent positive contribution as the predictors of social well-being. It was also observed that social value and growth factors of value preference had significant contribution, whereas personal value and protection—factors of value preference—had negative contribution as the predictors of social well-being. (shrink)

Currently, value sensitive design (VSD) does not commit to a particular ethical theory. Critiques contend that without such an explicit commitment, VSD lacks a methodology for distinguishing genuine moral values from mere stakeholders-preferences and runs the risk of attending to a set of values that is unprincipled or unbounded. We argue that VSD practitioners need to complement it with an ethical theory. We argue in favour of a mid-level ethical theory to fulfil this role.

Consciousness, or its lack, is often invoked in debates in applied and normative ethics. Conscious beings are typically held to be significantly more morally valuable than non-consious, so that establishing whether a being is conscious becomes of critical importance. In this paper, I argue that the supposition that phenomenal consciousness explains the value of our experiences or our lives, and the moral value of beings who are conscious, is less well-grounded than is commonly thought. A great deal of (...) what matters to us and about us can be explained by functional and representational properties that may not be sufficient for phenomenal consciousness. I conclude with some reflections on how these claims might affect debates in ethics. (shrink)

The ongoing energy transition toward more sustainable energy systems implies a change in the values for which such systems are designed. The energy transition however is not just about sustainability but also about values like energy security and affordability, and we witness the emergence of new values like energy justice and energy democracy. How can we understand such value changes and how can or should they affect the design of future energy systems? This introduction to the special section on (...) value change in energy systems introduces the main themes and questions. It discusses different understandings of values and value change, explains why the topic is important and how it can be methodologically studied. (shrink)

This paper argues that Moore’s principle of organic unities is false. Advocates of the principle have failed to take note of the distinction between actual intrinsic value and virtual intrinsic value. Purported cases of organic unities, where the actual intrinsic value of a part of a whole is allegedly defeated by the actual intrinsic value of the whole itself, are more plausibly seen as cases where the part in question has no actual intrinsic value but (...) instead a plurality of merely virtual intrinsic values. (shrink)

Reliabilism has come under recent attack for its alleged inability to account for the value we typically ascribe to knowledge. It is charged that a reliably-produced true belief has no more value than does the true belief alone. I reply to these charges on behalf of reliabilism; not because I think reliabilism is the correct theory of knowledge, but rather because being reliably-produced does add value of a sort to true beliefs. The added value stems from (...) the fact that a reliably-held belief is non-accidental in a particular way. While it is widely acknowledged that accidentally true beliefs cannot count as knowledge, it is rarely questioned why this should be so. An answer to this question emerges from the discussion of the value of reliability; an answer that holds interesting implications for the value and nature of knowledge. (shrink)

The Value of Life is an exploration of the actual and perceived importance of biological diversity for human beings and society. Stephen R. Kellert identifies ten basic values, which he describes as biologically based, inherent human tendencies that are greatly influenced and moderated by culture, learning, and experience. Drawing on 20 years of original research, he considers: the universal basis for how humans value nature differences in those values by gender, age, ethnicity, occupation, and geographic location how environment-related (...) activities affect values variation in values relating to different species how vlaues vary across cultures policy and management implications Throughout the book, Kellert argues that the preservation of biodiversity is fundamentally linked to human well-being in the largest sense as he illustrates the importance of biological diversity to the human sociocultural and psychological condition. (shrink)

In current American medical practice, autonomy is assumed to be more valuable than human life: if a patient autonomously refuses lifesaving treatment, the doctors are supposed to let him die. In this paper we discuss two values that might be at stake in such clinical contexts. Usually, we hear only of autonomy and best interests. However, here, autonomy is ambiguous between two concepts—concepts that are tied to different values and to different philosophical traditions. In some cases, the two values (that (...) of agency and that of authenticity) entail different outcomes. We argue that the comparative value of these values needs to be assessed. (shrink)

Value Co-Creation plays a major role in engaging knowledgeable individuals in a community via innovation, problem solving, and new service/product development. This study investigates the personal factors that influence individuals’ engagement in value co-creation in Higher Education Institutions through the use of online platforms. Some higher education institutions have successfully established or used appropriate online platforms, such as online forums, web applications, and mobile applications to engage their community in ideation or crowdsourcing as a part of the (...) class='Hi'>value co-creation process. On the other hand, some HEIs have failed to engage their community in value co-creation activities, and even if they managed to engage some individuals in value co-creation once, they failed to sustain these individuals’ engagement in value co-creation using online platforms. Using the Stimulus Organism Response framework, this study examines the relationship between relevant personal factors and other motivational factors that provide perceived benefits with value co-creation engagement. Data was collected from 308 respondents at five Malaysian research universities. The software analysis tool Smart PLS is used for data analysis and validation. The results demonstrate that personal factors and perceived benefits as a motivational factor has a significant effect on individual engagement in value co-creation. However, the significance of these findings varies from one individual to another. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Questions about the normative significance of ‘transparency’ do not receive much attention, even though they were central to Richard Moran’s (2001) original account. Instead, transparency is typically studied because of its epistemic and psychological peculiarities. In this paper, I consider three normative conceptions of transparency: teleological rationalism, procedural rationalism, and relational rationalism. The first is a theory about how transparency might relate to flourishing as a rational agent; the latter two are theories about how transparency relates to non-alienated self-knowledge. All (...) three conceptions, I argue, face serious problems. I end the paper by suggesting where the rationalist might go from here and by highlighting the importance of focusing not on the methods but on the broader circumstances in which self-knowledge is gained or lost. (shrink)

Despite Vancil’s (1979) proclamation over twenty years ago that topoi have been abandoned in argument theory, this essay contends that topoi should have a vital role in contemporary argumentation theory. Four key areas are identified where topoi are (or can be) essential tools for argumentation: Locating argument, building argument, development of critical thinking, and argument pedagogy. As a result, teachers and students of argument can both benefit from a (re)discovery of topoi.

The Value of Evidence thesis (VE) tells us to gather evidence before deciding in any decision problem, if the evidence is free. This appar- ently plausible principle faces two problems. First, it fails on evidence externalism or nonclassical decision theories. Second, it’s not general enough: it tells us to prefer gaining free evidence to gaining no evi- dence, but it doesn’t tell us to prefer gaining more informative evidence to gaining less informative evidence when both are free. This paper (...) defends an alternative value-of-evidence principle that solves the above two problems. We call it ‘the Comparative Value of Evidence for the Resolute (CVER).’ CVER not only generalizes VE to the comparative case but is also compatible with evidence externalism and nonclassical decision theories. Our argument, if successful, broadens the scope of the value-of-evidence principle and shows that it’s more robust than previously imagined. (shrink)