Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen

Value taxonomy

Book section

Original citation:
Originally published in Rabinowicz, Wlodek and Ronnow-Rasmussen, Toni (2015) Value
taxonomy. In: Brosch, Tobias and Sander, David, (eds.) Handbook of Value: Perspectives from
Economics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology. Oxford University Press,
Oxford, UK, pp. 23-42. ISBN 9780198716600

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VALUE TAXONOMY

Published in T. Brosch and D. Sander (eds.), The Handbook of Value: The Affective

Sciences of Values and Valuation. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2015, 23-42.

Value Taxonomy

Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen

Department of Philosophy, Lund University

This research was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Wlodek Rabinowicz or to

Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Department of Philosophy, Lund University, Kungshuset,

Lundagård, 222 22 Lund, Sweden, E-mail: Wlodek.Rabinowicz@fil.lu.se or Toni.Ronnow-

Rasmussen@fil.lu.se

1
VALUE TAXONOMY

Abstract

The paper presents main conceptual distinctions underlying much of modern philosophical

thinking about value. The introductory Section 1 is followed in Section 2 by an outline of the

contrast between non-relational value (impersonal good, or good, period) and relational value

(good for someone, or—more generally—good for some entity). In Section 3, the focus is on

the distinction between final and non-final value as well as on different kinds of final value.

In Section 4, we consider value relations, such as being better/worse/equally good/on a par.

Recent discussions suggest that we might need to considerably extend traditional taxonomies

of value relations.

Keywords: Good, Good for, Final value, intrinsic value, ……

2
VALUE TAXONOMY

Value Taxonomy: Introduction

Classical taxonomies, such as Linnaeus´s classification of plants or Mendeleev’s periodic

table of elements, help us to structure reality into fundamental types—be they types of plants

or atoms. But a value taxonomy is not necessarily about entities understood in a realistic

sense. Value taxonomies need not take a stand on the realism/irrealism issue. In many

contexts, what is of interest is not so much what is the case but what is believed to be the case.

In empirical studies, such as for example the European Values Study and the World Values

Survey, the focus tends to be on what people implicitly or explicitly believe to be valuable, or

on what they like or prefer. Studies of this kind endeavor to supply social scientists and policy

makers with data about people’s preferences and views about what they believe to be

significant (in their lives or more generally). While such studies are of great interest, we shall

in what follows focus on other matters: Our target is conceptual analysis.

Circumventing metaphysical issues and setting empirical studies aside does not lead to

arbitrariness about value taxonomy. In what follows we outline the core conceptual

distinctions that underlie much of modern philosophical thinking about value. After some

introductory remarks, we address in Section 2 the relation between value and value-for—an

issue that is attracting increasing attention in contemporary philosophical value theory. To put

it differently, this issue concerns the distinction between what is good (impersonally good, or

good, period) and what is good for someone, or—more generally—good for some entity. The

divide between these two value notions shapes much of modern ethics.

The notion of good, period, has over the years been subjected to many analyses, above all

when it is understood to be a gloss on what is good in itself or good for its own sake (in

contrast to what is good for the sake of something else). Section 3 focuses on some novel

analyses of these concepts, which have attracted considerable attention. In this section we also

briefly consider such notions as unconditional and non-derivative value. Finally, in Section 4,

3
VALUE TAXONOMY

we will have a look at comparative values, or—to put it differently—at value relations (such

as being better/worse/equally good/on a par). Recent discussions suggest that we might have

to considerably extend traditional taxonomies of value relations.

First, however, some introductory remarks are in order. Our focus is on conceptual

distinctions between value types. But a value taxonomy might also be substantive. That is, it

might distinguish between different types of objects that are thought to possess value (for

their own sake). There is a need for such a classification if one’s substantive theory of value is

of a pluralistic kind. Since Parfit (1984, 493-502), it is customary to distinguish between three

main kinds of substantive views about value. The first two are monistic: Hedonism identifies

what’s good (or good-for) with a positive balance of pleasure over pain,1 while desire theories

identify value with the satisfaction of desires.2 The third kind of substantive theory is

1
However, even a hedonist might see the need for a substantive value taxonomy if he takes

the view that different pleasures may carry essentially different values. In his Utilitarianism,

J.S. Mill famously distinguished between higher pleasures (coming from such noble pursuits

as poetry or philosophical contemplation) and lower pleasures (of sensual nature). Not

surprisingly, he suggested that the former are radically superior to the latter.
2
Desire theories admit of two fundamentally different versions (see Rabinowicz and

Österberg 1996). On the ‘satisfaction’ version, what is of value is the satisfaction of our

desires. On the ‘object’ version, the value accrues to what is being desired. The objects we

desire can be heterogeneous in nature, which allows for a pluralistic substantive theory of

value. It is only the satisfaction version that can naturally be seen as a monistic value theory.

Note that the object version can easily be generalized: On that view value might be ascribed

not only to the objects of desire, but also to the objects of other kinds of pro-attitudes. This

opens for value pluralism on the ontological, and not merely substantive, level: While it is

arguable that the objects of desire must be states of affairs, this restriction to states of affairs

4
VALUE TAXONOMY

explicitly pluralistic: It is the so-called objective list view, which ascribes value to a variety of

different types of things (e.g. to friendship, love, freedom, etc.) Such a list may, but need not,

include pleasure or desire-satisfaction.3

This is not the place to survey the substantive accounts. Let us instead provide some

examples of what we mean by value claims:

(1) Pleasure is good and pain is bad; (2) Drugs are not good for you; (3) This

painting by Titian is beautiful; (4) Rescuing the girl was a courageous thing to do;

(5) Mozart was a better composer than Salieri; (6) John is a good philosopher.

(1) mentions a positive and a negative general value; (2) refers to a relational value, “good-

for”; (3) is about an aesthetic value; (4) mentions a specific value property; (5) states a value

relation, and (6) is an example of an ‘attributive’ use of value predicates, as opposed to their

‘predicative’ usage in such statements as (1), for example. In the attributive usage, ‘good’ is a

category modifier (“a good philosopher”, “a good knife”, etc), while in the predicative usage,

it stands on its own. Sometimes it is unclear from the surface grammar how a given term is

being used. Compare “x is a grey building” with (6). Unlike the former sentence, (6) cannot

be read conjunctively: That x is a grey building means that x is grey and that it is a building.

Thus, “grey” is used predicatively in this context. But that John is a good philosopher does

as the only bearers of value disappears if one ascribes value to the objects of other pro-

attitudes as well.
3
Sometimes the items on the ‘objective list’ are themselves called values, but we prefer a

different terminology, according to which these items possess value, or are valuable. The

former use would make anti-realism about value an utterly implausible position. Surely, it is

uncontroversial that there are such things as friendship, love or pleasure. What is questioned

by the anti-realist is whether there exists any value property that these things, or anything else

for that matter, can possess.

5
VALUE TAXONOMY

not entail that John is good. “Good” here modifies “a philosopher”, instead of standing on its

own.

That statements like (1) – (6) make evaluative claims is a view deeply rooted in a loose set

of ideas about how such judgments differ from (purely) descriptive claims such as e.g.

‘pleasure is a mental state’; ‘some people are addicted to drugs’; ‘this painting weighs 5

kilograms’. But value claims should also be distinguished from the so-called deontic

statements, such as “You ought to keep your promises”, or “We must come to her rescue.”

While both the deontic and the evaluative statements are contrasted with the descriptive ones,

there is ‘prescriptivity’ and an action-guidingness in the area of the deontic 4 that is at least

not explicitly present in the area of the evaluative. Whether the prescriptive aspect is implicit

in the latter is a matter of controversy. On the so-called fitting-attitude analysis of value (FA-

analysis), which has recently been much discussed, an object is valuable if and only if it is

fitting (appropriate, warranted, required, …) to favour it. Here, “fitting” stands for the

normative component in the analysis, while “favour” is a place-holder for a pro-attitude.5

Thus, on this analysis, value judgments are plausibly interpretable as being implicitly

prescriptive.6

4
To be sure, not only prescriptions, but also permissions belong to the deontic area. However,

one might argue that they do so simply because they are denials of prescriptions.
5
Depending on the nature of the fitting pro-attitude (desire, preference, admiration, respect,

care, etc, …) we get different kinds of value (desirability, preferability, admirability, and so

on).
6
On a version of FA-analysis that is due to Scanlon (1998), for an object to be good or

valuable is for it to have properties that provide reasons to respond to it in various positive

ways. On this account, it is the notion of a reason that is the deontic component in the

analysis. Since the role of the reason-provider is here transferred from the value of the object

6
VALUE TAXONOMY

The above list of value claims may also serve as an illustration of certain issues in value

theory that have bearing on value taxonomies. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ seem to be predicates that are

quite different from, say, ‘beautiful’ or ‘courageous’. To judge something to be good offers

much less (if any) specific information about that thing than if we had judged it to be

beautiful or if we had judged someone to be courageous. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ have been referred

to as thin concepts because of their lack of descriptive content; more specific value concepts

have accordingly been called thick (Williams 1985, 140-43). The nature of this distinction

between thick and thin evaluative concepts is a much debated matter.7 In what follows, the

focus will be on the thin value notions rather than on the thick ones. Our taxonomical

suggestions are thus meant to primarily apply to the former, but some of them might also

apply to the latter.

to other properties (the ones that make the object valuable), this version of the analysis has

been called “the buck-passing account of value”.

7
See Kirchin (2013). Mulligan (2010) contains the following list of thick value categories:

“There are the aesthetic properties of being beautiful, elegant, or sublime. There are the

cognitive value‐properties of which clarity, distinctness, illusion, error, knowledge, truth and

falsity are the bearers and the property of being foolish. There are the ethical properties of

being evil and good, and the properties corresponding to different ethical virtues and vices,

for example, the property of being a coward. There are the properties of being right, just and

unjust. There are the religious properties of being holy or sacred and profane. There are the

vital value‐properties of which health, life, and illness are the bearers. And the sensory value‐

properties of being pleasant and unpleasant.” Whether all the items on Mulligan’s list are

thick value properties can, of course, be discussed. Some of them might instead be classified

as value-making features (truth, pleasantness), while some others seem to be thin rather than

thick (rightness).

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VALUE TAXONOMY

Thus, in particular, although values sometimes are ordered into domains such as moral,

aesthetic, prudential, political, economic—to mention some of the most common ones—in

this paper we shall focus on the conceptual distinctions that can be made independently of

which of the areas of value one is interested in.

In an influential paper, Geach (1956) argued that predicative uses of ‘good’ do not make

sense, unlike its attributive uses. The apparent predicative uses, of the form “a is good”, are

on this view incomplete expressions that need to be filled out with a specification of the

appropriate object category to which a is supposed to belong and within which it is taken to

be an exemplary specimen. Thus, “John is good” is short for “John is a good man [or “a good

person”?]”, “Tour d’Eiffel is majestic” is short for “Tour d’Eiffel is a majestic building [or “a

majestic tower”?]”, and so on. 8 This all-encompassing attributivism about “good” is a

controversial position. Many value theorists accept it, but at least as many reject it. It might

also turn out that an acceptable form of attributivism will have to be so diluted that it will no

longer clearly differ from predicativism. If one takes statements such as, say, “that p is the

case is good/bad”, which ascribe goodness or badness to states of affairs, as being elliptic for

attributive statements of the form “that p is the case is a good/bad state of affairs”, then

predicativists might have no problems with accepting such attributive re-descriptions.9

8
Other philosophers sympathetic to this idea have in important ways nuanced the Geachian

view. See e.g. Thomson (1992) who argues that if something is good it is always good “in a

way” (but not necessarily, as Geach thought, good of its kind, which is a special form of being

good in a way).
9
Cf. Schroeder (2012). Geach would have claimed that categories such as “state of affairs”,

“event”, “thing”, etc. are too general to play the role of category-fillers in value statements:

They do not provide standards that allow us to identify their exemplary representatives. Cf.

8
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2. Good and Good-for

In his seminal Methods of Ethics (1874, 7th ed. 1907), Henry Sidgwick argued at length

that as rational agents we face a choice: we can do what (we believe) is good for us or we can

do what (we believe) is good per se, i.e., what is impersonally good or as we shall also say,

good, period. This choice becomes an acute problem when maximizing the good does not

maximize the good for the agent. The insight that practical rationality must choose between

securing what is impersonally good (acting morally) or making sure you get what is good for

you (acting in your own interest) was something Sidgwick believed distinguished modern

ethics from the ethics of ancient Greeks (cf. Crisp 2004, 106). By understanding what is good

in terms of what is good for the agent, Greek philosophy failed in his view to properly

appreciate the nature of this problem, and so it did not grasp the “dualism of practical reason”:

the existence of two independent ultimate objectives that we have reasons to strive for.

Whether Sidgwick was right in his claims about ancient Greek philosophy is a debated matter

(for a criticism, see e.g. Brewer 2009, 200). That modern ethics turns around this divide is

clear.10 11

Geach (1956). See also Thomson (2008) who explicitly rules out states of affairs from what

she refers to as “goodness fixing kinds”.

10
See Crisp (2004, 112), who points out that Sidgwick’s own analyses of good-for and good,

period, were versions of the FA-analysis. Thus, according to Sidgwick, the “ultimate good on

the whole for me” is “what I should practically desire if my desires were in harmony with

reason, assuming my own existence alone to be considered” (Sidgwick 1907, 112). We get

the analysis of good, period, if we remove the last clause in this definition.
11
Often, when we try to clarify what we have in mind when we speak about what is good for

someone, we say that it is a component of a person’s wellbeing, or that it is something that

9
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One early objection against the notion of good period was based on the objectivist idea that

goodness can accrue to objects independently of the attitudes of the subjects, which is a

highly questionable view.12 On the other hand, a value objectivist might be tempted by a

converse objection that we should give up on ‘good for’ since that notion presupposes the

subjectivist conception of value.

Such a polarization of the two concepts of goodness appears misconceived, however. In

recent years, there have emerged suggestions about how to understand the

subjectivism/objectivism distinction in a way that implies that both notions, good period and

good-for, are available to subjectivist and to objectivist approaches alike (Rabinowicz and

Österberg 1996, Rønnow-Rasmussen 2011). The subjectivist idea that value is dependent on

benefits the person, or makes his or her life go better. One might agree with such paraphrases

but still wonder how “wellbeing”, “better life” or “benefit” should be understood. As Richard

Kraut has pointed out, saying that what is good for someone consists in it “being beneficial,

advantageous, and so on” is not really helpful; the latter expressions “are not conceptually

prior to and explanatory of the relation of being good for someone” (Kraut 2011, 69).

Sometimes “good for” refers not to an element in a person’s wellbeing but to what

promotes the latter. In this usage, “good for” refers to an instrumental value, i.e., value as a

means for something else (Bradley 2013, Rønnow-Rasmussen 2006). We shall return to the

distinction between instrumental and final (non-instrumental) value in Section 3. But here it is

important to keep in mind that the ongoing debate about good vs. good-for primarily concerns

the issue whether there are one or two kinds of non-instrumental goodness (Cf. Kraut 2011;

Rønnow-Rasmussen 2011, Rosati 2008, 2009, Zimmerman 2009).

12
See Hobbes, who in some places gives voice to this sort of objection: “one cannot speak of

something as being simply good; since whatsoever is good, is good for someone or other” (De

Homine. XI. 4, 47).

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the attitudes of a subject is not to be understood as an account of goodness-for but rather as as

a claim that all goodness is goodness-relative-to a subject. But that notion should not be

confused with the notion of good-for. Thus, to illustrate, some of the things that are good-

relative-to x, i.e. things that are objects of x’s pro-attitudes, need not be good for x–they need

not be conducive to x’s wellbeing in any way. (cf. Schroeder 2007; Smith 2003)

G. E. Moore’s response in his major work Principia Ethica (1903) to the dualism problem

highlighted by Sidgwick was different, but equally radical. Moore’s Gordian cut consisted in

the argument that the very notion of someone’s good was nonsensical if it referred to a sort of

private goodness, a positive value property that somehow was the subject’s possession (which

he believed egoism assumed):

What then is meant by “my own good”? In what sense can a thing be good for

me? It is obvious, if we reflect, that the only thing which can belong to me, which

can be mine, is something which is good, and not the fact that it is good (1903,

150).

Moore’s discussion paved the way for a position in contemporary value theory which reduces

good-for to what is good period. Let us refer to such a reductive view as moorean monism.

Moore’s own, positive suggestion was that “When … I talk of anything I get as my own good,

I must mean either that the thing I get is good, or that my possessing it is good. In both cases

it is only the thing or the possession of it which is mine, and not the goodness of that thing or

that possession.” (Moore 1903, 150). Moorean monists often suggest that claims about what is

good for someone are claims to the effect that some fact involving the person whose good we

are considering, is good period. Of course, not all versions of moorean monism are inspired

by Moore. Consider the so-called perfectionist views that understand what is good for a

person in terms of what contributes to the excellence of that person or to the flourishing of the

person’s life. Such views do not directly take a stand on the ‘good period/good for’ issue.

11
VALUE TAXONOMY

However, they can be seen as forms of moorean monism: A dyadic predicate—‘good for’—is

analyzed in terms of a monadic one: ‘excellence’, or ‘flourishing’ (both of which may be

regarded as species of goodness period).13

In recent years, there have been various attempts to formulate or further develop versions

of moorean monism (e.g., Campbell 2013, Fletcher 2012, Regan 2004, Hurka 1998).14

However, this view is challenged by an influential alternative line of thought which argues

that moorean monists get it fundamentally wrong: it is good-for, rather than good period, that

is conceptually prior. In other words, it is good period that should be analyzed in terms of

good-for—either good for some (group of) subject(s) (Thomson 1992) or perhaps for “man”

13
There is another and perhaps historically more adequate way of looking at perfectionist

proposals, though. If the gist of such proposals is that what is good for an agent is what

contributes to his having a good life or to him being an excellent person, then this kind of

analysis seems to reduce good-for to an attributive usage of “good”, in which that predicate

does not stand on its own.

14
Cf., for instance, the so-called Locative Analysis of good in Fletcher (2012): “G is non-

instrumentally good for X if and only if (i) G is non-instrumentally good, (ii) G has properties

that generate, or would generate, agent-relative reasons for X to hold pro-attitudes towards G

for its own sake, (iii) G is essentially related to X” (p. 3). This is a straightforward example of

how what is non-instrumentally good for someone is reduced to what is non-instrumentally

good. Campbell (2013:1) proposes a revisionist analysis of what is good for you in terms of

what is “contributing to the appeal or desirability of being in your position”. Hurka thinks that

“'good for' is fundamentally confused, and should be banished from moral philosophy. The

problem is not that the expression can be given no clear sense. It can, indeed, be given too

many senses, none of which is best expressed by 'good for'.” (Hurka 1998, 72) The senses

listed by Hurka are either purely descriptive or rely on the impersonal concept of ‘good’.

12
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in general (see Campbell 1935)—and not the other way round. The idea of, say, beauty or

knowledge being good quite independent of whether they are good for anyone, as for instance

Moore thought, is rejected by the proponents of this view, for various reasons.15

Being a moorean monist or a good-for monist are obviously the radical options. The dualist

view, according to which there is room for both good period and good-for as mutually

irreducible notions, has many defenders (see e.g. Darwall 2002, Rønnow-Rasmussen 2011).16

In light of the discussion between monists and dualists, the value taxonomist faces a

challenge that presently is unresolved: should there be one or two value taxonomies? That is,

must our value taxonomy branch out into two distinct directions—one concerning good

period and another concerning good-for?

15
(Kraut 2011) has argued for a different, but related view. According to him, good period is

not a reason-giving property, contrary to good-for. On this account, then, good period has no

normative role to play in our deliberation about what to do. (Kraut 2011:8).
16
Michael Smith points out that “commonsense morality seems to tell us that our obligations

are a function of the relative weights of both the neutral and the relative values at stake in a

particular choice situation” (Smith 2003, 577). However, if some goods are neutral à la Moore

and others are relative, then the two kinds of value, Smith argues, are incommensurable, and

hence, commonsense morality is incoherent in believing that there is a weighing function. But

Smith also considers another interpretation of commonsense morality, according to which

there “is only one kind of goodness—there is only subscripted [i.e. relational] goodness—and

the distinction between neutral and relative goods is made by distinguishing between the

properties in virtue of which things are good” (p. 588; italics added). This view might be seen

as a species of a good-for monism, but only if one interprets Smith’s “subscripted goodness “

as goodness-for, which by no means is obvious. On another interpretation, subscripted

goodness is goodness-relative-to; see above for the latter concept.

13
VALUE TAXONOMY

3. Final and non-final values.

Let us now turn to another demarcation line within value theory, namely the distinction

between what is intrinsically good, i.e. good in itself, and what is finally good, i.e. good for its

own sake. In what follows, we focus on how this distinction is drawn within the area of good

period, rather than in the area of good-for. However, the pattern of analysis we are going to

employ to deal with the distinction can also be applied, mutatis mutandis, in the latter area.

In the Republic, Plato distinguished between three kinds of goods: (i) goods that we desire

for their own sake, (ii) goods that we desire both for their own sake and for the sake of their

consequences, and finally (iii) goods that we desire only for their consequences.17 To put it

somewhat anachronistically, then, Plato’s taxonomy turns on the notions of ‘good for its own

sake’ and ‘good for the sake of something else’. It should be noted, however, that for Plato

things are good for their own sake in virtue of the direct benefits they bring to their possessor

(ibid., 367 b-e). His examples of such things include sight, hearing, intelligence and health,

along with justice and enjoyment. His distinction thus concerns things that are good-for a

person.18

17
Plato (1992:357b-c). Republic are from G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve’s translation

(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co).

18
It is arguable that Plato considered these things to be good period, though at the same time

localized to a given person (see Brewer 2009, 200). Thus, they are good-for in a Moorean

sense, so to speak. It should also be noted that Plato’s distinction differs from the modern one:

For him, we desire something for its own sake if it directly benefits us, whether it is a

constituent of our final good (as is the case with virtue) or one of its direct partial causes

14
VALUE TAXONOMY

Much of the recent debate revolves around an approach to final value that goes back to G.

E. Moore. For Moore (1922, 260), the ultimate value was “intrinsic” and he took an object to

be intrinsically valuable insofar as its value was grounded in its “intrinsic nature”. The

properties that together form the intrinsic nature of an object are internal to the object in

question. In addition, they are necessary to that object (ibid. pp. 260f). Moore was probably

led to this requirement of necessity by his belief that things that are good in themselves are

good independently of circumstances. Since circumstances can affect contingent properties of

an object, the object’s intrinsic value can only depend on those of its properties that aren’t

contingent. In post-Moorean discussions, however, this necessity requirement was often

relinquished. On this later view, it is possible for the intrinsic value of an object to be

grounded in some of its contingent properties, as long as these properties are internal to the

object in question. Thus, for example, an intrinsically valuable life might derive its value from

some of its experiential components, which it might not have contained if the circumstances

had been different. (We will have reason to return to the necessity requirement in what

follows, when we consider Kant’s idea of unconditional value.)

Moore assumed that nothing can be good for its own sake unless it is intrinsically good,

good ‘in itself’. But he questioned the converse: Thus, in Ethics (1965 [1912], 30-32), he

suggested that an object is good for its own sake only if all of its parts are intrinsically good.

If only some part of the object is intrinsically good, then this can often make the object as a

whole intrinsically good, but then this object is good for the sake of its part and not for its

own sake. This Moorean restriction on the use of “good for its own sake” has, however, not

been followed in the later debates.

(sight, intelligence). In the latter case, a modern philosopher would say that we are talking

about goodness as a (direct) means rather than goodness for its own sake.

15
VALUE TAXONOMY

Several philosophers (e.g. Beardsley 1965, Korsgaard 1983, Kagan 1998; O’Neill 1992;

Rabinowicz & Rønnow-Rasmussen 2000) have argued for the possibility that Moore

excluded: what is finally valuable need not always be intrinsically valuable in the Moorean

sense. Something can be valuable for its own sake in virtue of an external property it

possesses—in virtue of its relation to some external object or objects. Thus, for example, a

pen that was used by Abraham Lincoln might be valued for its own sake precisely because of

its connection to a famous person (Kagan 1992). Or, an object might be valuable for its own

sake partly in virtue of its rarity or uniqueness (Beardsley 1965). This means that final value

might in some cases be extrinsic rather than intrinsic.

Korsgaard’s distinction between final intrinsic and final extrinsic goodness turns on

whether the “source of goodness” is located in or outside the valuable object. The term

‘source’, however, is ambiguous; it might refer to the value-making features of the object (the

“supervenience base” of value), or to the subject (or some other “source”) that constructs

value—that bestows or projects the value onto the object. It has been questioned whether

drawing the distinction in terms of the source of value is felicitous (Rabinowicz and Rønnow-

Rasmussen 2000, Dancy 2004; Hussein and Shah 2006; Tannenbaum 2010. Cf. Langton

2007). In particular, the second interpretation of the notion of the source appears to be

irrelevant to the issue at hand. One doesn’t need to be a subjectivist or a constructivist about

value in order to recognize the existence of final extrinsic values.

The words “final” and “sake” call for caution. They can be understood in different ways. In

this article, the expressions “valuable for its own sake” and “final value” are used to make

clear that the value we are talking about is not one that accrues to some x in virtue of x being

conducive to or being necessary for something else that is of value. On this interpretation,

values are ‘final’ in the sense of being ‘ultimate’. This has an advantage over an interpretation

according to which final value is equated with value as an end (for that usage, see e.g.,

16
VALUE TAXONOMY

Tannenbaum 2010). The advantage is that the former interpretation gives the notion of final

value a broader reach: It allows (but of course does not necessitate) ascriptions of such value

to a broad range of different kinds of things (pens, stamps, persons, etc.), and not only to

objects that can be ends or objectives (i.e. not only to states of affairs and the like).

Objects that are valuable for their own sake are standardly contrasted with instrumentally

valuable things, i.e., objects that are valuable as means to something else that is valuable.

Instrumentally valuable items are examples of things that are valuable for the sake of

something else and not necessarily for their own sake. Note, however, that value for the sake

of something else (i.e. non-final value) is a broad category. In particular, it also comprises so-

called contributive values. An object is contributively valuable if it has value as a part—if it is

a constituent of something that is made more valuable than it would it otherwise had been by

the presence of this constituent.

The notions of instrumental value or contributive value are to some extent problematic. For

instance, it is not clear that a means to something valuable is a genuine value in the first place.

(c.f. Moore 1903, 24; Lewis 1946, 384–5; Rønnow-Rasmussen 2002).19 In fact, FA-analysis

allows for for making a distinction between a mere means to something valuable and a

genuine instrumental value: The latter accrues to an object if and only if it is fitting to favour

that object on account of it being a means to something else. Contrast this with the FA-

definition of final value: such value accrues to an object if and only it is fitting to favour it for

its own sake.

19
As far as we understand, Moore denied this. For him, being instrumentally good was simply

being a means to something good and not being good in virtue of being such a means. He

took an analogous view of contributive value: “To have value merely as a part is equivalent to

having no value at all, but merely being a part of that which has it.” (Moore 1903:35)

17
VALUE TAXONOMY

Note that, given these definitions, the existence of instrumental value does not

automatically imply the existence of final values. But a value theory that allows the former

without postulating the latter would be very strange indeed.

Some further important value notions should next be considered. Sometimes certain values

are described as being unconditional. A value is conditional if it accrues to an object only if a

certain condition is satisfied. An unconditional value is a value something has under all

possible conditions. Thus, Kant in the Groundwork of a Metaphysics of Morals famously

argued that good will is the only unconditional value. There is an extensive amount of

scholarly work on Kant’s ideas about the good will and his related claim that persons are

“ends in themselves”. It has been pointed out (Bradley 2006) that while mooreans stress that

value is something that should be promoted, it is for kantians something that requires respect.

Arguably, this contrast—which goes back to Pettit (1989)—is somewhat oversimplified.

Although respect is supposed to be the core response towards good will, even for Kant

promoting good will was an important goal, as may be seen from the role he gave to moral

education. The idea that different kinds of value call for different kinds of appropriate

responses is well in line with FA-analysis of value. This suggests that there might be a way to

combine moorean and kantian values within the confines of the same value theory.

The notion of unconditional value appears to be easily interpretable in terms of final value.

It seems to be a certain kind of final value, namely final value that accrues to an object in

virtue of the latter’s essential features. Thus, for instance, hedonism is often characterized as a

view on which only pleasure carries this kind of final value. In whatever context we find

pleasure, it will be valuable for its own sake in virtue of its nature. That is, it is

unconditionably valuable on the hedonist view. Note that pleasure is not only finally but also

intrinsically valuable. It is an open question whether there could exist an extrinsic final value

that is unconditional: This would require that the extrinsic properties on which such a value is

18
VALUE TAXONOMY

based are essential to the value bearer. Whether this is possible might well be disputed. A

related but different distinction is the one between derivative and non-derivative values.

Objects carrying derivative value are described as owing their value to the value of something

else. Instrumental values are sometimes described in this way: “An instrumentally valuable

object owes its value to the final value of whatever it is a means to.” (Olson 2005, 45; as we

have seen above, this is not the only way of understanding instrumental values) However,

even final values might be derivative. An example would be a diamond ring that possesses a

final value (an intrinsic one) which exclusively derives from the value of its diamond. Also,

many sentimental or personal values might be of this kind. An otherwise useless item might

carry an engraving made by your beloved spouse, making it valuable to you (cf. Rønnow-

Rasmussen 2011). Thus, the distinction between non-derivative and derivative is orthogonal

to the distinction between final and non-final.

5. Value relations20

This section deals with value relations. It is a subject that has only recently received

serious attention. There is therefore a relatively limited literature dealing with these matters

and many contributions tend to be fairly technical.

Let us say that two items are commensurable if one is better, worse or equally as good as

the other. In several publications, Ruth Chang has argued that two items might be comparable

in value even though they are incommensurable in the sense introduced above (i.e., even

though neither is better than, worse than, or equally as good as the other). Instead of being

related in one of these standard ways, they may be on a par, as she puts it (see Chang 2002b;

20
This section draws to a large extent on Rabinowicz (2008) and (2009a).

19
VALUE TAXONOMY

cf. also Chang 1997, 2002a and 2005).21 Thus, consider, say, Mozart (x) and Michelangelo

(y). They are comparable in their excellence as artists, but intuitively neither of them is better

than the other.

What about the possibility that they are equally good? Chang dismisses this possibility

using what she calls “the Small-Improvement Argument”. We are asked to envisage a third

artist, x+, who is slightly better than but otherwise similar to x. x+ is a fictional figure – a

slightly improved version of Mozart – perhaps Mozart who managed to compose yet another

Requiem and a couple of additional operas. Now, the idea is that x+ is a better artist than x

without thereby being better than y. This would have been impossible if x and y had been

equally good: Anything that’s better than one of them would have to be better than the other.

Indeed, it seems that x+ and y are on a par, just as x and y.22

Just as equal goodness, parity is a symmetric relation, but–unlike equal goodness–this

relation is not transitive. In the example above, x is on a par with y, y is on a par with x+, but x

is not on a par with x+: x+ is better than x. Again, unlike equal goodness, parity is irreflexive:

No item is on a par with itself.

21
The notion of parity as a fourth form of comparability, along with the standard three

relations of ‘better’, ‘worse’ and ‘equally good’, has predecessors in philosophy. Thus, Griffin

(1986, pp. 81, 96ff) introduced a similar notion of ‘rough equality’, while Parfit (1984, p.431)

suggested using the term ‘rough comparability’ for this relation.

22
This argument was proposed by several philosophers prior to Chang. In particular, Raz

(1986, p. 326) calls the possibility of such a ‘one-sided’ improvement “the mark of

incommensurability”. On his view, if each item can be ‘one-sidedly’ improved, then this is a

sufficient (but not necessary) test that two items are incommensurable, i.e. such that it is

neither the case that one of them is better than the other, nor that they are of equal value. Note

that two incommensurable items may be on a par, but they do not have to be.

20
VALUE TAXONOMY

So, x and y in our example aren’t equally good, nor is any of them better than the other.

That they nevertheless are comparable in value is something Chang (2002b) tries to establish

by “the Unidimensional Chaining Argument”. Envisage an item y0 that is worse than both x

and y, while being similar in kind to, say, y. Suppose y0 is a sculptor, like Michelangelo (y),

but not in the same league as the latter. We are asked to imagine a finite sequence of items

starting with y0 that goes all the way up to y, in which every successive item in one respect

slightly improves on its immediate predecessor, while being equal to it in other respects.

Respects in which improvements are made may vary as one moves up in the sequence. But in

every step in the sequence there is, we assume, a small change in one respect only. Now,

Chang suggests that such a small ‘unidimensional’ improvement cannot affect comparability:

It cannot take us from an item that is comparable with x to one that is no longer comparable.

Since the first element in the sequence is comparable with x (by hypothesis, y0 is worse than

x), the same should therefore apply—by induction—to each element that follows, up to and

including the last element, y.

That a small unidimensional improvement cannot make comparability disappear is a

controversial assumption. Chang’s chaining argument is too sorites-like to allay the suspicion

that it exploits potential indeterminacy (vagueness) in our judgments of comparability. 23 24The

23
The starting point of the sequence (y0) might be determinately comparable with x, the

endpoint (y) might be determinately non-comparable with x, and we might have cases of

indeterminate comparability somewhere in-between. This could be the reason for the apparent

absence of a sharp break in the sequence.

24
Indeed, Broome (1997) has argued for a more radical claim, namely that allowing for

vagueness in the threshold cases of value comparisons is outright incompatible with the

postulation of (determinate) incommensurabilities. If this is right, then there is no room for

parity in the presence of vagueness. However, Broome’s argument is based on a controversial

21
VALUE TAXONOMY

possibility of vagueness also threatens the small improvement argument.25 Chang admits that

the argument for parity as a fourth type of value comparability remains incomplete until it is

shown, as she indeed tries to do (see Chang 2002b), that parity phenomena cannot be

explained away as instances of vagueness, or perhaps as mere gaps in our evaluative

knowledge.

Assuming, however, that parity exists, how should this value relation be analyzed? Joshua

Gert (2004) proposes to elucidate it by an appeal to FA-analysis: The main idea is that value

comparisons can be seen as normative assessments of preference. Thus, one item is better

than another if and only if preferring the former to the latter is required. Two items are

equally good if and only if what is required is to be indifferent between them, i.e, to equi-

prefer them both.

The novelty of Gert’s approach, as compared with the traditional versions of FA-analysis,

rests on the observation that there are two levels of normativity—the stronger level of

requirement (‘ought’) and the weaker level of permission (‘may’). It is the availability of

permission—the weaker level of normativity—that makes conceptual room for parity: x and y

can be said to be on a par if and only if it is permissible to prefer x to y and permissible to

have the opposite preference. (For this definition, cf. Rabinowicz 2008. Gert’s own definition

of parity is much more demanding: too demanding, in fact, as shown by Rabinowicz.)

assumption, the so-called Collapsing Principle, which has been criticized by other

philosophers (cf. Carlson 2004, Gustafsson 2013, Elson 2013). Rabinowicz (2009b) shows

how to accommodate both vagueness and parity in the same formal modeling.
25
It might be that it is indeterminate whether x is better than, worse than, or equally as good

as y, but determinate that one of these three relations does obtain between these two items.

This is compatible with x+ being determinately better than x while not being determinately

better than y.

22
VALUE TAXONOMY

Intuitively, we have to do with parity when value comparisons are based on several value-

relevant dimensions or respects. In such a case, the overall preference we arrive at will depend

on how we weigh the relevant dimensions vis-à-vis each other. Different admissible ways of

weighing can give rise to different permissible preferences, and thereby to cases of parity in

value.26

Parity is a form of comparability in value. What about incomparability? Rabinowicz

(2008) makes the following suggestion. Preference and indifference are different kinds of

preferential attitudes: To be indifferent between two items is to be equally prepared to make

either choice. But for some pairs of items we might lack a fixed preferential attitude. In such a

case, if we need to choose, we typically experience the choice situation as internally

conflicted. We can see reasons on either side, but we cannot (or do not) balance them off. Or

we waver without taking a definite stand. We make a choice if we have to, but without the

conflict of reasons being resolved. This possibility of a fixed preferential attitude being absent

allows us to accommodate incomparabilities in the FA-analytic framework. More precisely, if

the absence of a (fixed) preferential attitude with regard to a pair of items is required, then the

items can be said to be incomparable. That is, x and y are incomparable if and only if it is

impermissible to either prefer one to the other or to be indifferent.

26
A different analysis of parity, which is not based on FA-analysis, is provided by Carlson

(2010). Carlson defines parity in terms of betterness: Two items are on a par if neither is

better than the other, nor are they equally good, and they have appropriate betterness relations

to other items in the domain. (For the details, see Carlson’s paper.) However, this definition

can be plausible only if the domain of items is rich enough. Otherwise, there might well exist

two items that intuitively are incomparable but that come out as being on a par on the

definition under consideration.

23
VALUE TAXONOMY

Isn’t this definition too demanding? Shouldn’t it be enough for incomparability that the

absence of a preferential attitude is permissible rather than required? Well, such a lenient

criterion would seem awkward. We do not say that something is undesirable if it is merely

permissible not to desire it. It is undesirable only if desiring it is impermissible in some sense.

By analogy, we shouldn’t say that two items are incomparable if it is merely permissible not

to have a preferential attitude as they are concerned. However, if we wish, we can introduce

this weaker relation by a stipulative definition: x and y are weakly incomparable if and only if

it is permissible neither to prefer one to the other nor to be indifferent.

While incomparability is a ‘requiring’ concept, comparability in value could be understood

either in permissive terms, as the contradictory of incomparability (i.e. as the relation that

obtains between x and y if and only if it is permissible to have a preferential attitude with

respect to x and y), or in requiring terms, as the contradictory of weak incomparability (i.e. as

the relation that obtains between x and y if and only if it is required to have a preferential

attitude with respect to x and y). One might refer to the latter, stronger concept as ‘full

comparability’.

Rabinowicz (2008) suggests that one might work with the following ‘intersection

modelling’ to account for these different relations in a more general and more formal way.

Suppose we focus on a domain D of items. Let K be the class of all permissible preference

orderings of the items in D. K is non-empty, i.e., at least one preference ordering of the items

in the domain is permissible. The orderings in K need not be complete, i.e., they might

contain gaps. In a complete preference ordering, for every pair of items in the domain, either

one item is preferred to the other or they are both equi-preferred. Since we need to make room

for incomparabilities and thus need to allow for gaps in preferential attitudes, completeness

cannot be assumed. What can be assumed, however, is that all the orderings in K are well-

behaved at least in the following sense: In every such permissible ordering, weak preference

24
VALUE TAXONOMY

(that is, preference-or- indifference) is a quasi-order. I.e., it is a transitive and reflexive

relation.

In terms of K, the relation of betterness between items can now be defined as the

intersection of permissible preferences:

(B) x is better than y if and only if x is preferred to y in every ordering in K.

This is another way of saying that x is better than y if and only preferring x to y is required.

Moving now to other value relations, it is easily seen how equality in value, parity,

incomparability, etc. are definable in this modeling:

(E) Two items are equally good if and only if they are equi-preferred in every ordering in K.

(P) x and y are on a par if and only if K contains two orderings such that x is preferred to y in

one and y is preferred to x in the other.

(I) x and y are incomparable if and only if every ordering in K contains a gap with regard to x

and y.

And so on. 27

27
Gert (2004) provides a different model, which is framed in terms of the assignments of

intervals of permissible strengths to items in the domain. For an item x, we can denote this

interval by [xmin, xmax], with xmin standing for the interval’s lower bound and xmax for its upper

bound. Then x is said to be better than y if and only if xmin > ymax, i.e., if and only if the

weakest permissible preference for x is stronger than the strongest permissible preference for

y. For x and y to be on a par, their intervals must overlap, which means that there is a

permissible preference for x that is stronger than some permissible preference for y and vice

versa: there is a permissible preference for y that is stronger than some permissible preference

for x. Gert’s interval model is criticized in Chang (2005) and Rabinowicz (2008). The main

objection is that the model lacks constraints on combinations of permissible preferences: any

permissible preference for one item can be combined with any permissible preference for the

25
VALUE TAXONOMY

The intersection model allows us to derive formal properties of value relations from the

corresponding conditions on permissible preference orderings. Thus, one can now prove that

betterness is a transitive and asymmetric relation, that equal goodness is an equivalence

relation (i.e., that it is transitive, symmetric and reflexive) and that whatever is better than,

worse than, on a par with or incomparable with one of the equally good items must have

exactly the same value relation to the other item. Thus, the modeling does some work.

Indeed, this feature of the modeling might give one pause. To give an example, consider

betterness. That this relation is transitive is, many would say, a conceptual truth. (Many, but

not all. For an opposing view, see Temkin 1996, 2012.) But in the intersection modeling this

transitivity condition on betterness comes from the transitivity of preference orderings in K.

Transitivity might seem to be a very plausible condition on permissible preference orderings.

But is it as firmly established as the corresponding condition on betterness? Similar remarks

apply to other formal features of value relations that are derivable in the modeling. This might

be seen as a weakness of the proposal under consideration. Another weakness has to do with

the very notion of preference. If preference is conceptually tied to potential choice, analyzing

value relations in terms of permissible preferences restricts the domain of such relations to

objects between which a choice is possible. Since objects of choice at bottom are options at an

agent’s disposal, this appears to be a problematic limitation: After all, we want to make value

comparisons also between other things (works of art, persons, states of the world, etc.) For a

suggestion how to deal with these problems without giving up the basic contours of the

intersection model, see Rabinowicz (2012).

But let us move on. We now have all we need for a general taxonomy of binary value

relations. In the table below, each column describes one type of a value relation, by specifying

other item. It can be shown that this leads to counter-intuitive results: Certain structures of

value relations cannot be represented by the interval modeling.

26
VALUE TAXONOMY

all the preferential positions that are permissible with regard to a pair of items. There are four

such positions to consider: preference (≻), indifference (≈), dispreference (≺), and gap (/).

There is a plus sign in a column for every position that is permissible in a given value type.

Since for any two items at least one preferential position must be permissible (if K is non-

empty), the number of columns equals the number of ways one can pick a non-empty subset

out of the set of four positions. For example, in type 7, all preferential positions except for the

gap are permissible, while in type 15, which corresponds to incomparability (I), the gap is the

only permissible position. In type 1, which corresponds to betterness (B), the only permissible

position is preference, i. e., preferring one item to the other is required. And so on.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

≻ + + + + + + + +

≈ + + + + + + + +

≺ + + + + + + + +

/ + + + + + + + +

B E W P P P P I

The columns in the table correspond to atomic types of value relations. Collections of atomic

types, such as parity (P, types 6 – 9, i.e. all types in which there are plus signs in the first and

the third rows), comparability (types 1 - 14), or weak incomparability (types 8 - 15), form

types in a broader sense of the word. While Chang was right to suggest that parity is a form of

comparability, it is not an atomic type. In this respect, it differs from the three traditional

value relations: better (B), worse (W), and equally good (E).

The fifteen atomic types listed above are all logically possible. But some of them might not

represent ‘real’ possibilities. For example, it might seem that both indifference and

preferential gaps with regard to items that are on a par should always be permissible. This

27
VALUE TAXONOMY

would exclude types 6, 7 and 8. In result, only type 9 would be left for parity, which would

mean that parity after all does boil down to an atomic type of value relation. Note that extra

requirements of this kind importantly differ from such conditions as, say, transitivity of

preference or symmetry of indifference. The latter impose constraints on each ordering in K.

The extra requirements instead impose constraints on class K taken as a whole: They state that

K must contain orderings of certain kinds if it contains orderings of certain other kinds.

Rabinowicz’s modeling of value relations has not been left unopposed. For one thing, it

has been pointed out that this account presupposes FA-analysis of value, which might well be

questioned. And, in any case, its reliance on FA-analysis makes it less general than would be

desirable (cf. Carlson 2010; for some general criticisms of FA-analysis see Rabinowicz &

Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004 and Bykvist 2009). At the same time, the account in question

appeals to two levels of normativity, while the classic FA-analysis mentions just one level

(fittingness). Gustafsson (2013b) argues that the account is unacceptable because it violates

what he calls value-preference symmetry, i.e. the condition to the effect that for every value

relation there is a corresponding preference relation, and vice versa. To preserve the

symmetry, Gustafsson suggests, we should introduce parity not just as a value relation but

also as a sui generis preference relation. On his account, then, two items are on a par in value

if and only if it is fitting to hold them preferentially on a par.

Obviously, the discussions on this subject, as on several other subjects in the theory of

value, have not reached a point where consensus is in sight. Given the ever-questioning nature

of philosophical investigation, it is possible that this point will never be reached.

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