Philosophy and Ideas
What are value judgements? They have been seen as mysterious, but I think they really have a simple nature[i], and that appreciating this dissolves long-standing confusions and helps us focus on making better judgements about how to act and what to value.
Value judgements can be contrasted with the factual. We speak about what ‘is’, but we also speak about what is ‘good’. On the one side there is our factual, positive[ii] thinking about what is, has or might be. On the other side there are value judgements, our normative thinking, about what is good and what ought to be. ‘The cat is on the mat’ is factual, whereas ‘it is bad that the cat leaves hairs on the mat’ is normative.
The normative includes the key area of value judgements about how to act – practical reason – and practical reason in turn includes moral judgements.
Value judgements can seem peculiar. One reaction is to see some normative judgments as a non-rational expression of emotions.[iii] A contrasting approach is to see some normative judgements as of a separate nature[iv]and perhaps even as being supernatural.[v] Such approaches underly influential philosophical views of the nature of morality but I think they are misguided and the normative is more straightforward.
To see this, note we use basic normative words across the full range of normative judgments. I can say the weather is good, a car is good, a picture is good, and an action is good. I can say ‘you ought to turn right for the shop’ just as I can say ‘you ought not steal.’
There are a series of inter-related core normative words. ‘Good’ is the most basic normative adjective and adverb, with its comparative ‘better,’ superlative ‘best’ and negatives ‘bad’, ‘worse’ and ‘worst.’ ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are used for a binary choice. ‘Ought’ is the most basic normative verb with ‘must’ used to indicate there being no alternative.[vi] As well as such pure normative words we also have words such as ‘quick’ and ‘kind’ that are ‘thick’ in combining factual and evaluative elements.
Our wide use of the normative vocabulary may imply that all normative judgements have the same underlying character. I think this is the case, and that the secret is to see that they are all evaluations relative to ends.
On this view, the basic form is ‘good for’ as in ‘exercise is good for health.’ The core meaning of ‘good’ is that an ‘object’ is favourable to or makes more likely an ‘end’. ‘Object’ here includes actions and states, while ‘end’ includes any standard, interest, aim or other criteria against which a judgement is made. A judgement that a car is good is that it meets certain motoring criteria. A cat not leaving hairs is good relative to the aim of having a clean mat. Similarly, the core meaning of ‘ought’ is that an ‘object’ is the most probable way to achieve an ‘end’. ‘You ought to buy the car’ means that buying the car is the most likely way to achieve your motoring aims.
The end-relational nature of the normative is obscured because the implied end or ends are often left unstated. If we are discussing directions to a shop I will say ‘you ought to turn right’ and by ellipsis drop ‘for the shop.’ I may say ‘the weather is good’ but this value judgement is incomplete unless you know whether I mean ‘good for sunbathing’ or ‘good for watering crops.’
More controversially[vii], I believe the same logic applies widely so that even a bald moral judgement such as ‘you ought not steal’ really is relativized to ends such as promoting welfare and rule-following. In our conversations and our thinking, I believe all our evaluations are made against assumed background ends, even though these are often unstated, vague and fluid. It seems to me that for any evaluation we can ask ‘for what end’ and this will tease out some underlying vague ends. I don’t think a value judgement can stand totally isolated from evaluative criteria.
If the normative is indeed end-relational, then the mysteries about its nature evaporate. A normative judgement is simply a human evaluation of how some object or action relates to an ‘end’. As such it is not very different in nature from a positive report of a fact in the world. Compare ‘the sun will rise at 6am’ with ‘you ought to leave after 6am to travel in the light.’ The factual statement concerns the relationship between the world and a human concept while the value judgement simply concerns the relationship between the world and a human end. We assess the truth of a normative judgement by considering the relationship between ‘object’ and ‘end’ and normative judgments can range from the certain ‘you must have water to live’ to the unknowable ‘this job might be good for my long-term happiness.’
On this view normative judgements have both objective and subjective elements. They are objective in that they relate to facts in the world and use reason, and they are subjective in that they answer man-made questions about human ends. Those who see normative judgements as being about emotions may be concentrating excessively on the subjective aspects while those who see normativity as being of a separate nature may be overly focused on the objective aspects.
The end-relational view also makes clear that value judgements have a binary nature, involving both means and ends. Practical decision-making may often take ends as given and concentrate on means, but there can be value in reflecting further and more systematically about ends.
If all value judgements are indeed end-relational this would dissolve their seemingly mysterious nature and stop views that consider normative judgements to be expressions of emotions or derived from a separate realm. Instead, their nature is clear: they are human judgements about how the world relates to human ends. Appreciating this should leave us clear to address squarely without distraction the core human task of making good judgements about how to act and what to value.
Notes
[i] This essay follows (Finlay, 2014)
[ii] ‘Positive’ in the sense of ‘posited’.
[iii] The emotivist tradition which includes (Hume, 1738) and (Blackburn, 1998)
[iv] The robust realist tradition which includes (Parfit, 2011)
[v] As are divine command views of morality
[vi] Other core normative words include ‘should’, ‘have to’ ‘valuable’ and ‘positive’
[vii] In (Kant, 1785) unrelativized ’categorical imperatives’ are seen as the mark of the moral
References
Blackburn, S. (1998). Ruling Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Finlay, S. (2014). Confusion of Tounges: A Theory of Normative Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hume, D. (1738). A Treatise of Human Nature.
Kant, I. (1785). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals .
Parfit, D. (2011). On What Matters. Oxford : Oxford University Press.