Abstract
Previous chapters considered value theories of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. These disciplines can benefit and learn from one another, and closer interaction between disciplines will lead to better value theory. To facilitate an interdisciplinary understanding of value, this chapter will highlight the overlap between the different disciplines and what they can learn from one another. Each section of this chapter compares two disciplines and highlights overlaps, similarities, and differences. The hope is that this constructive comparison will build a bridge between disciplines, which helps to advance the theory development within the disciplines and brings theoretical blind spots into focus. Bringing disciplines together is the first step towards crossing disciplinary boundaries, resolving conceptual differences, and increasing interdisciplinary communication.
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Notes
- 1.
Sometimes, the disciplines seem to merge into one, particularly social psychology combining elements from psychology and sociology.
- 2.
Psychological investigations may not be relevant for philosophes that want to develop a priori accounts of value that do not include assumption about the human mind.
- 3.
Anthropologists and sociologists share a similar methodological problem: How can we access value? In sociology, Adler (1956) has claimed that values are only accessible through people’s actions and social institutions. Similarly, the anthropologist Kluckhohn (1951) has cautioned that values are often implicit and that people may not be able to lucidly talk about their values, which makes it hard for anthropologists to access them. As a consequence, the values of a society cannot be directly observed but have to be inferred from the observable behavior of people, which begs the question about the causal relation between value and behavior. The problem is aptly expressed by James Spates, who says about values that “we have no logical way of ‚getting back to‘ them from the data; we cannot say that x causes y when the only indicator we have of x is y” (Spates, 1983, p. 35).
- 4.
It should be noted here that this focus on values means taking seriously the idea that what groups and societies define as good can differ. For instance, one group may value honor more than another group.
- 5.
Anthologists may also want to look at the philosophical discussion of moral trendsetters, especially discussions about the role of trendsetters in norm change. The topic of norm- or moral trendsetters seems connected to the anthropological interest in exemplars. Both disciplines may benefit from paying attention to what the other discipline has to say.
- 6.
Although philosophers like Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, and Max Scheler are on the radar of anthropologists (e.g., Sommerschuh & Robbins, 2016), more recent philosophical treatments about the objective existence of value is absent from anthropological discussions.
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Steinert, S. (2023). A Bridge Between Disciplines. In: Interdisciplinary Value Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10733-7_6
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