Value theory

Value theory is the study of values. Also called axiology, it examines the nature, sources, and types of values. It is a branch of philosophy and an interdisciplinary field closely associated with social sciences such as economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.

Value is the worth of something, usually understood as a degree that covers both positive and negative magnitudes corresponding to the terms good and bad. Values influence many human endeavors related to emotion, decision-making, and action. Value theorists distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental value. An entity has intrinsic value if it is good in itself, independent of external factors. An entity has instrumental value if it is useful as a means leading to other good things. Some classifications focus on the type of benefit, including economic, moral, political, aesthetic, and religious values. Other categorizations include attributive, predicative, personal, impersonal, and agent-relative values.

Value realists state that values have mind-independent existence as objective features of reality. Anti-realists reject this, with some seeing values as subjective human creations and others viewing value statements as meaningless. Regarding the sources of value, hedonists argue that only pleasure has intrinsic value, whereas desire theorists discuss desires as the ultimate source of value. Perfectionism, another approach, emphasizes the cultivation of characteristic human abilities. Value pluralism identifies diverse sources of intrinsic value, raising the issue of whether values belonging to different types are comparable. Value theorists employ various methods of inquiry, ranging from reliance on intuitions and thought experiments to the description of first-person experience and the analysis of language.

Ethics, a related field, focuses primarily on normative concepts of right behavior, whereas value theory explores evaluative concepts about what is good. In economics, theories of value are frameworks to assess and explain the economic value of commodities. Sociology and anthropology examine values as aspects of societies and cultures, reflecting dominant preferences and beliefs. Psychologists tend to understand values as abstract motivational goals that shape an individual's personality. The roots of value theory lie in the ancient period as reflections on the highest good that humans should pursue.