Value in Ethics and Economics

Elizabeth Anderson

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 1995
• Print ISBN: 9780674931909, 9780674931893
• eBook ISBN: 9780674261457
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Elizabeth Anderson offers a new theory of value and rationality that rejects cost–benefit analysis in our social lives and in our ethical theories. This account of the plurality of values thus offers a new approach, beyond welfare economics and traditional theories of justice, for assessing the ethical limitations of the market. In this light, Anderson discusses several contemporary controversies involving the proper scope of the market, including commercial surrogate motherhood, privatization of public services, and the application of cost–benefit analysis to issues of environmental protection.

1 ♦ A Pluralist Theory of Value

1.1 A Rational Attitude Theory of Value

People experience the world as infused with many different values. Friendships can be intimate, or merely convenient, charged with sexual excitement, or mellow. A subway station can be confining, menacing, and dumpy, or spacious, welcoming, and sleek. When people attribute goodness or badness to some thing, person, relationship, act, or state of affairs, they usually do so in some respect or other: as dashing, informative, or tasty, delightful, trustworthy, or honorable, or as corrupt, cruel, odious, horrifying, dangerous, or ugly. Our evaluative experiences, and the judgments based on them, are deeply pluralistic.

I aim to explain and vindicate this pluralism of ordinary evaluative thought and to develop some of its practical and theoretical implications. This requires an investigation into the ways people relate to goods: in experiencing values, in valuing or caring about things, in expressing and justifying value judgments. Understanding these phenomena will help us home in on what it is to be good and how we know things to be good.

The suggestion that we have evaluative experiences has struck many philosophers as metaphysically eerie: science has discovered no “evaluative facts,” or any organs of “moral sense,” that enable us to discern the properties of “good” and “bad” in the world (Mackie 1977, pp. 38–42). We can dispel this mystery by recalling what ordinary experiences of value are like. We experience things not as simply good or bad, but as good or bad in particular respects that elicit distinct responses in us. There is nothing mysterious about finding a dessert delectable, a joke hilarious, a soccer match exhilarating, a revolution liberating. We also can find someone’s compliments cloying, a task burdensome, a speech boring. To experience something as good is to be favorably aroused by it—to be inspired, attracted, interested, pleased, awed. To experience it as bad is to be unfavorably aroused by it—to be shocked, offended, disgusted, irritated, bored, pained. Evaluative experiences are experiences of things as arousing particular positive or negative emotional responses in us.

Evaluative experiences are relevant to questions concerning the good because they typically arouse or express our concerns about what we experience. Valuing or caring about things is more fundamental to understanding values than are experiences of value, for many things can be good which are not directly encountered in experience, but are known only through theory or description (Johnston 1989, p. 142). No particular qualities of experience need to accompany knowledge of the literacy rate, the justice of patterns or processes of wealth distribution, or the stability of habitats for endangered species. What makes such things candidates for goodness seems to be that we can care about them or value them.

To value something is to have a complex of positive attitudes toward it, governed by distinct standards for perception, emotion, deliberation, desire, and conduct. People who care about something are emotionally involved in what concerns the object of care. Parents who love their children will normally be happy when their children are successful and alarmed when they are injured. They will be alert to their needs, take their welfare seriously in their deliberations, and want to take actions that express their care. These all express the way loving parents value their children.

To experience something as valuable and to value it are not to judge that it is valuable. A person may laugh at a racist joke, but be embarrassed at her laughter. Her embarrassment reflects a judgment that her amusement was not an appropriate response to the joke. The joke was not genuinely good or funny: it did not merit laughter. A person could also judge that a joke is funny, but be so depressed that she can’t bring herself to laugh at it. Such a judgment could be the occasion of further depression, because it makes her aware of her own deficient state of mind, too miserable even to appreciate a good joke.

These observations support the following proposal: to judge that something is good is to judge that it is properly valued. And to judge that it is bad is to judge that it is properly disvalued. Often people judge that something is good in some particular respect, as in being charming, or inventive. I suggest that the proposition “x is F,” where F is a respect in which something is judged to be genuinely valuable, entails that x meets a particular standard F, and that x merits valuation in virtue of meeting F.¹ One intrinsically values something when one values it in itself—that is, apart from valuing anything else. I propose that the judgment that x is intrinsically valuable entails that (under normal conditions) x is properly intrinsically valued, independent of the propriety of valuing any other particular thing. Extrinsic values include but are not confined to instrumental values. One may treasure an ugly, useless gift because it was given by a loved one. Such a gift is extrinsically valuable, in that one’s valuation of it depends upon one’s valuation of the giver.

Reflective value judgments commit one to certain forms of self-assessment which are embodied in second-order attitudes, or attitudes about other attitudes. As we saw above, one may be embarrassed or depressed by one’s failure to respond appropriately to what one judges to be good. One may be pleased by or proud of one’s appropriate valuations. I propose that this is so because the concepts of meriting valuation and being properly valued are rationality concepts. When we wonder whether something is appropriately valued, we wonder whether we would be making sense in valuing it. On my view, the investigation into what is worth our caring about is a quest for self-understanding, an attempt to make sense of our own valuational responses to the world. In §5.1, I will tie the project of rational self-understanding to social practices of justification. Here I will offer a provisional account of the story to come. The link between self-understanding and justification is provided by the fact that valuations are expressive states. They are bearers of meanings and subject to interpretation. Since meanings are public, I can understand my own attitudes only in terms that make sense to others. Attitudes are also partly constituted by norms that determine their proper objects. So the interpretation of attitudes involves their evaluation as well. I will argue that people interpret and justify their valuations by exchanging reasons for them with the aim of reaching a common point of view from which others can achieve and reflectively endorse one another’s valuations. To judge that one’s valuations make sense is to judge that they would be endorsed from that hypothetical point of view. To be rational is to be suitably responsive to reasons offered by those attempting to reach that point of view.

The terms in which we make sense of our valuations are given by our evaluative concepts. The opening of this chapter sampled some of the rich variety of concepts through which we describe evaluative experiences and express value judgments. Call a person’s values whatever standards she accepts for evaluating persons, actions, and things. Evaluation is the process by which a person judges how far and in what ways different things meet her standards. An object’s values consist of whatever properties it has, in virtue of which it meets various standards of value. I have proposed that the judgment that an object meets an authentic standard of value entails that its meeting that standard makes it sensible for someone to value it. The standards of value for objects are standards of rationality for our responses to them. One of my values could be that bedrooms be cozy. If a given bedroom is cozy, then coziness is a value it has. Its coziness gives me a reason to feel comfortable in it and makes sense of my feeling snug when I retire there. Standards rationally adjust our valuations to their appropriate objects.

Although all authentic values set standards for rational valuation, not every rational valuation of something depends upon its meeting some standard of value (Gaus 1990, pp. 70–71). Some ways of caring about things do depend upon their measuring up to particular standards of value—people don’t admire athletes or musicians who lack dedication and skill—but other ways of valuing things do not. Parental love is like this. Parents can love infants independent of any valuable qualities they may have. Of course, loving another person will usually involve delight in some of that person’s qualities, as when parents rave over the fact that little Melissa has her father’s eyes. But this doesn’t imply that the parents think that having father’s eyes merits anyone’s raving, much less that their love for Melissa depends upon her having her father’s eyes. Rather, parents express their love for an infant in part by adoring whatever features she has which can be adored. These features need not merit valuation in their own right: parents can dote even on an ugly face.

It follows that we have two conceptions of goods that do not exactly coincide. On one view, a good is something that is appropriately valued. On the second, a good is a bearer or bundle of qualities that meet certain standards or requirements we (correctly) set for it (Mackie 1977, pp. 55–56). The second conception defines a subset of the objects that fall under the first: those things that merit valuation by meeting prior standards of value. But the first conception is more basic, for it can be appropriate to value some things or persons in certain ways without their meeting independent standards of evaluation—that is, without their meriting valuation.

The two conceptions of goods lead to two conceptions of the plurality of goods. On the first, goods are plural in that they are sensibly valued in fundamentally different ways. The opposing monistic view holds that all goods are the proper objects of a single evaluative attitude, such as desire, pleasure, or admiring contemplation. On the second conception, goods are plural in that the authentic evaluative standards they meet are fundamentally diverse. The opposing monistic view maintains that the apparently diverse standards for rational valuation can be reduced to some single ground or explained by reference to a single good-constituting property, such as being desired or pleasant. The first conception of pluralism is more basic than the second because it explains why the second is true: we need a plurality of standards to make sense of the plurality of emotional responses and attitudes we have to things. The things that sensibly elicit delight are not generally the same things that merit respect or admiration. Our capacities for articulating our attitudes depend upon our understandings of our attitudes, which are informed by norms for valuation. To attempt to reduce the plurality of standards to a single standard, ground, or good-constituting property threatens to obliterate the self-understandings in terms of which we make sense of and differentiate our emotions, attitudes, and concerns. To adopt a monistic theory of value as our self-understanding is to hopelessly impoverish our responsive capacities to a monolithic “pro” or “con” attitude or to mere desire and aversion.

In identifying what is good with the proper objects of positive valuation, my theory follows Franz Brentano’s. Brentano (1969, p. 18) held that an object is good if and only if it is correct to love it, and bad if and only if it is correct to hate it. My theory adds two main points to Brentano’s. First, it views the concept of “correctness” as a rationality concept, tied to the quest for rational self-understanding. My theory of value could be called a “rational attitude theory,” according to which the attitudes engaged when we care about things involve not just feelings but judgment, conduct, sensitivities to qualities in what we value, and certain ways of structuring deliberation concerned with what we value.² Second, there is not just one way to love or have a “pro-attitude” toward things. There are different forms of love, such as romantic, parental, and fraternal, and there are ways of valuing things that are not love at all, such as respect and admiration. The variety of ways of caring about things is the source of pluralism in my theory of value.

1.2 Ideals and Self-Assessment

Valuing and evaluation are distinct activities. In evaluation, people determine how far something meets the particular standards they set for it. In valuing something, people meet certain standards for caring about it, although they may be unaware of, may not endorse, and may not try to govern their actions by those standards. A person could care about something but judge himself contemptible for caring about it. For example, Max could discover to his dismay that he is absorbed by his own good looks, even though he judges his vanity contemptible. Evaluation is a means by which people come to rational self-understanding and self-governance of their own valuations. Because the standards of value people set for objects are the standards of rationality they set for their valuations, every evaluation of an object implies an evaluation of the valuing subject. In bringing their evaluations and valuations into harmony, people judge themselves worthy of positive valuation, or at least not worthy of negative valuation.

This suggests that the grounds of a person’s reflectively held values (if she has any) lie in her conceptions of what kind of person she ought to be, what kinds of character, attitudes, concerns, and commitments she should have. I call such self-conceptions ideals. Ideals are objects not merely of desire, but of aspiration. The desires to be an exemplary mother or a U.S. Marine, to be a suave, sophisticated cosmopolitan or a self-made man, to be a champion of science over superstition or a zealous missionary devoted to spreading God’s word are aspirations toward ideals with which we are familiar. Members of communities may have shared ideals, such as to be a citizen republic, culturally or racially pure, to be the artistic avant-garde, to live in holy matrimony or in harmony with nature. As these examples suggest, to call a self-conception an ideal is not necessarily to endorse it, but to imply that it is a possible object of admiration or condemnation, honor or disdain, and that the people who adopt it regard it as worthy.

Ideals set the standards of conduct and emotion people expect themselves to satisfy with regard to other people, relationships, and things. A U.S. Marine is supposed to be patriotic—to love his country, obey its leaders, and fight to the death for the causes it esteems. A connoisseur of fine art is supposed to cultivate an appreciation of subtle qualities in painting and sculpture and to be appalled at damage done to great works. A labor union activist is supposed to build solidarity with fellow members of the working class and to feel that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Such standards of conduct and emotion tell us how to care about things and people. We care about things and people in different ways, which express what I call different modes of valuation, such as love, respect, and admiration. Ideals give us perspectives from which to articulate and scrutinize the ways we value things.

The core of an ideal consists in a conception of qualities of character, or characteristics of the community, which the holders regard as excellent and as central to their identities. Associated with this core is a conception of admirable conduct or worthy practices and projects that demand the cultivation, exercise, and expression of these qualities. An ideal is constitutive of a person’s identity if it governs her self-assessments and her responses to her achievement and failure and if she uses it to discipline her desires and frame her choices. Failure to live up to one’s ideals will prompt shame, guilt, self-contempt, or other negative self-assessing emotions. Circumstances which prevent a person from realizing her ideals are likely to be experienced as humiliating and degrading, not just as frustrating.

Ideals ground some crucial distinctions in the theory of value. One is between value and importance to a person. I have claimed that goods are things whose valuation is rational. An ambiguity exists here between what anyone could rationally value if she were in appropriate circumstances and what it makes sense for a particular person to value, given her circumstances and characteristics. I reserve the impersonal sense of rationality for the attribution of value to something and the personal sense for what is important to a person. There is a great diversity of worthwhile ideals, not all of which can be combined in a single life. Different ideals may require the cultivation of incompatible virtues or the pursuit of some projects that necessarily preclude the pursuit of others. Individuals with different talents, temperaments, interests, opportunities, and relations to others rationally adopt or uphold different ideals. Since ideals direct a person to specially value some worthwhile projects, persons, and things over others, they distinguish from among all goods those that are particularly important to the individual.

That incompatible ideals are properly adopted by different persons explains why it doesn’t make sense for everyone to take up the same attitudes toward the same things. There are far more potentially worthy objects of valuation than could occupy any one person’s concern. The different relations individuals have toward persons and things help determine their proper attitudes toward them. This is obviously true for love. Radically different kinds of love are appropriate to different members of one’s family, depending on one’s relationship to them. That an individual stands in a particular relation to some persons or objects—say, as daughter, business partner, or inventor—partly determines the ideals rationally available to her, the importance these persons and objects have for her, and hence the appropriate attitudes she should take up toward them.

So ideals distinguish among goods that play a more or less important role in a person’s life. They also distinguish between goods that are important to a person just because she happens to care about them and goods that are important to her because they command her concern (Frankfurt 1988). In the former case, as long as the goods don’t violate minimal impersonal standards for rational valuation, it doesn’t matter for her self-regard whether she cares about them or loses interest in them. In the latter case, whether she cares about them can reflect well or poorly on herself. A person sees her failure to live up to her core ideal aspirations in this light. Call goods of the former type weakly valued and those of the latter type strongly valued.³

People use ideals to cultivate and discipline their desires. Ideals function in this way because they are expressed in second-order desires, or desires to have or change other desires. If I uphold an ideal of integrity, I want myself to be motivated to stand up for my beliefs, and I want this desire to govern my actions even when it conflicts with my desire to maintain a favorable reputation. Not every second-order desire expresses an ideal. I could want to get rid of a desire simply because it is inconvenient. Perhaps my desire to linger on the telephone prevents me from getting on with my evening. Here I engage only my weak valuations, for I regard the desires in question as merely optional. I could choose to adopt a more leisurely attitude toward my affairs rather than to get rid of my desire to carry on with my friends over the phone. But I don’t regard my desire for integrity as merely optional. No simple, unobjectionable change of perspective is available which would allow me to pander to others’ opinions when my integrity is at stake. If I lack the desire for certain weakly valued ends, such as physical comfort, this might make me weird or quirky but not worthy of contempt. If I lack the desire for strongly valued ends, such as integrity, this makes me base or deplorable in my own eyes.⁴

In telling us how to value different goods, and in tying our valuations to our judgments of self-worth, ideals help structure the world of goods into different kinds. They draw boundaries between different classes of goods, setting them into circulation within distinct networks of social relations governed by distinct norms. This differentiation of ways of valuing things, socially embodied in different social spheres, provides the key to understanding how goods differ in kind.

1.3 How Goods Differ in Kind (I): Different Modes of Valuation

Kant’s mora...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 A Pluralist Theory of Value
• 2 An Expressive Theory of Rational Action
• 3 Pluralism and Incommensurable Goods
• 4 Self-Understanding, the Hierarchy of Values, and Moral Constraints
• 5 Criticism, Justification, and Common Sense
• 6 Monistic Theories of Value
• 7 The Ethical Limitations of the Market
• 8 Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?
• 9 Cost-Benefit Analysis, Safety, and Environmental Quality
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index