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On Value

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

No one who is interested in the problem of value and attempts to read through the literature on the subject can fail to be struck by the extraordinary diversity of opinion. Some of this difference of view is traceable to ambiguities in language; there are various terms employed, each of which, of course, may or may not express any valid idea—terms like value, values, kinds of value, sorts of things that have value, value-objects, things that have value. The terms value and values are subject to and lead to much confusion, even on the part of those who are aware of the existence of such a danger. Much of the difference may probably be due to two other important factors: first, the education and training in earlier years whereby emotional reactions to words instead of intelligent understanding of their meaning and validity are induced, and, second, the continual reliance upon moral experience, which reliance may seem to be necessary, but which may be invalidated by the consideration, generally overlooked and unappraised, that moral, like social, experience might not be what it is if certain views were not entertained and did not prevail. The latter possibility would put moral and social studies on a plane quite different from that of physical investigations, for the moral and social inquirer would always have to bear in mind that the facts with which he is confronted, and to which he seeks to appeal, may exist to confront him and his fellowmen only in the sense that they arise from the acceptance and effectuation of a belief or theory, and would not be but for the effectuation of the belief or theory. The other factor, that of the influence of education and training upon emotional reactions, is also important in relation to a study of value, for it is necessary to be on guard against confusing reactions to words and reactions to objects, things, or situations.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1935

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References

page 45 note 1 Clarke, : The Logic of Value, p. 255Google Scholar

page 46 note 1 Laird, : The Idea of Value, p. 246Google Scholar, Sect. 11. Cf. p. 238, Sect. 7.

page 48 note 1 A Study in Moral Theory, Ch. ii, p. 25.

page 49 note 1 Clarke, : The Logic of Value, p. 156.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 Moral Values and the Idea of God, p. 484.

page 50 note 1 See Clarke, : The Logic of Value, pp. 154155, 156, 245.Google Scholar

page 51 note 1 The Idea of Value, Ch. x.