Discussion on Value

@amist,

amist;127070 wrote:

Is value objective or subjective?

Yes. ...................

@amist,

Both.

Grownups often has a very sentimental relation to weird useless things, they have had since childhood, which noone else would ever appreciate.

Very analfixated people can by fugly art, just because it's famous but otherwise would never even look at, if it wasn't highly praised.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;127071 wrote:

Yes. ...................

For the sake of getting a discussion started, would you like to elaborate on your position?

@amist,

amist;127070 wrote:

'There is no value without an evaluator'

Do you agree/disagree with this statement? Is value objective or subjective?

I agree. Subjective. But this subjective value can be measured (questionnaires, experiments) objectively.

@amist,

amist;127087 wrote:

For the sake of getting a discussion started, would you like to elaborate on your position?

Aspects of both. But, of course, "subjective" and "objective" need some explaining. In one sense of "subjective", my liking vanilla ice-cream is subjective, but the belief that a person who talks over you, and interrupts you constantly is rude, is not subjective. Everyone (but maybe him) would agree that his behavior was rude.

@amist,

Preliminary remarks:

Consider first the premise that values are "objective." But there must be a subject capable of knowing them or (to turn it around), there must be something about objective values such that they can be known by us. But, as soon as you require that they be known, then you must be able to show that their knowledge (the knowing of them) is objective, and that is difficult to posit; for if the values have an objective status and are known objectively, then everyone must acknowledge the same set of values and this is demonstratively not the actual case.

Of course, one could say that values are objective and not knowable (as such), but that seems to be completely unsatisfactory for several reasons. First, they would be useless for living and making choices. Secondly, if these are unknowable, then one could never prove they are objective in the first place.

Assuming an either/or position about whether values are objective or subjective (i.e.. they either do not have some status in between, or that some values are objective and others are subjective---if so, then why?) it seems more arguable that values are subjective, as this accounts for our experiences of different values amongst various societies, and for the changes in values that have transpired historically (for example, slavery).

@jgweed,

jgweed;127133 wrote:

Preliminary remarks:

Consider first the premise that values are "objective." But there must be a subject capable of knowing them or (to turn it around), there must be something about objective values such that they can be known by us. But, as soon as you require that they be known, then you must be able to show that their knowledge (the knowing of them) is objective, and that is difficult to posit; for if the values have an objective status and are known objectively, then everyone must acknowledge the same set of values and this is demonstratively not the actual case.

Of course, one could say that values are objective and not knowable (as such), but that seems to be completely unsatisfactory for several reasons. First, they would be useless for living and making choices. Secondly, if these are unknowable, then one could never prove they are objective in the first place.

Assuming an either/or position about whether values are objective or subjective (i.e.. they either do not have some status in between, or that some values are objective and others are subjective---if so, then why?) it seems more arguable that values are subjective, as this accounts for our experiences of different values amongst various societies, and for the changes in values that have transpired historically (for example, slavery).

It is not true that for values to be objective, everyone must acknowledge the same set of values. It is objective whether or not the Earth is flat or it is round, but we all know that people disagreed about what the shape of the Earth was. Agreement is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of objectivity. I don't know where you could have gotten such an idea. It is demonstratively not the case.

What accounts for different values among societies may very well be different information about the facts. For instance cannibals eat human flesh and we do not. Why. Well, some cannibals believe that eating human flesh gives them the power of those they eat. Suppose they discovered that is not true. Would they still eat human flesh?

Many Southern plantation owner kept slaves because they believed it would be impossible for them to maintain their economic standard unless they kept slaves. Suppose that it had been shown to them that was false. Would they have then kept slaves? Probably not.

@jgweed,

Value is always established in an Axis of proximity or distance towards something witch does not need to be considered as an object but might well be in rigour and on close inspection a meta object...common steps in a gravity chain of Value do not implicate necessarily the entire same walk for all the agents towards something "in si" transcendental...
Thus the object is an unfinished social construction, a Meta-object...being this object a value, something to witch we emotionally relate directly, in spite of others references, our perspective is therefore, all we have...
(...to knowledge purpose what can be objectified is a statistic of some common steps...not the Thing. The Thing has an holistic relation with reality and can only be explained through the all of its relations with it...)

@amist,

amist;127070 wrote:

'There is no value without an evaluator'

Do you agree/disagree with this statement? Is value objective or subjective?

Greetings, amist

Yes, it is true: There is no value without an evaluator. The process of finding that value is called evaluation.

If "objective" means: "capable of inter-subjective consensus or the consensus itself" -- and I don't know what else it could mean, in the sense in which you employ the word here -- then value (the reification of the process of valuation) can be objective. Of course, it is also subjective, since it is an individual who engages in the process. That person is a value; that person does the prizing, preferring, rating, sizing up, liking, valuiing, etc.

Thus it is both at once, both objective and subjective.

You may find this article to very helpful. It is an objective discussion about what has often been considered to be an intangible and subjective concept: value and evaluation. The disciploine that orders and explains it is called Axiology.
The following article appeared in The Journal of Human Religion, Vol

The paper is at once both lucid and profound. Happy reading !!

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