Values: Some Examples Values: Some Examples

The things that philosophers have generally listed as intrinsically valu- able fall into a few categories: certain states of consciousness; personal relationships; intellectual, artistic, and moral excellence; knowledge; and human life itself. In claiming that these things are valuable, these

philosophers seem to mean that it is good that they occur. G. E. Moore was quite explicit about this, saying that in order to decide whether a thing is intrinsically valuable or not we should imagine a world in which only that thing existed and ask ourselves whether we would judge its existence to be good.11_{W. D. Ross was slightly less explicit,}

but his discussion of “What things are good?” also concentrates on the question of what makes some “states of the universe” better than others.12 _{When we consider the things that are generally held to be}

intrinsically valuable, however, it becomes apparent that in most cases taking them to be valuable is not simply, or even primarily, a matter of thinking that certain states of the universe are better than others and are therefore to be promoted.

Consider ~rst the case of friendship. Moore listed “the pleasures of human intercourse” as “one of the most valuable things we know or can imagine.”13_{By this he meant that a world that contains two people}

enjoying the pleasures of reciprocated affection is made better, other things being equal, by containing this occurrence. Now it may be true that the existence of friendship and the pleasures it brings make a world better, but it strikes me as odd to suggest that this is what is central to the value of friendship. Surely we are right to value friend- ship (and presumably this is part of what Moore was af~rming), so one way of looking for a more plausible account of the matter is to ask what this “valuing” involves.

A person who values friendship will take herself to have reasons, ~rst and foremost, to do those things that are involved in being a good friend: to be loyal, to be concerned with her friends’ interests, to try to stay in touch, to spend time with her friends, and so on. Someone who values friendship will also believe that she has reasons of a slightly different kind to cultivate new friendships and to keep the ones she already has, and will think that having friends is a good worth seeking. Consequently, a person who values friendship will also think it good for other people that they have friends, and will be moved to bring this about insofar as these people are of concern to her.14_{It seems over-}

blown to say that what is important about friendship is that it in- creases the value of the state of the universe in which it occurs. But there is nothing odd about saying that it improves the quality of a life. So reasons of the last three kinds I mentioned (reasons to bring it about that one has friends, to keep the ones one has, and to help bring it about that others whom one cares about have friends) might be seen as restating Moore’s thesis in a more modest form. They are at least like

his thesis in having a teleological form: accepting them as reasons involves holding that it is good (in this case, good for the individuals in question) that friendship should occur and that friendship is therefore “to be promoted.”

But the reasons in the ~rst category, the ones involved in being a good friend, do not have this form. Some of them, such as reasons to be loyal to one’s friends and not to betray them, are not teleological in this way: the primary reason to be loyal to one’s friends is not that this is necessary in order for the friendship to continue to exist. Other reasons in this category are reasons to bring about certain states of affairs: to promote the interests of one’s friends, for example, and to try to make them happy. But what is “to be promoted” here is not the occurrence of friendship but other speci~c ends.

Moreover, while all the reasons I have mentioned are ones that would be recognized by a person who valued friendship, it is the reasons in this ~rst category (those involved in being a good friend) that are most central to friendship, and when con_icts occur these reasons take priority over the reasons we have to promote friendship (for ourselves or others). We would not say that it showed how much a person valued friendship if he betrayed one friend in order to make several new ones, or in order to bring it about that other people had more friends.15

I shifted, near the beginning of this discussion of the value of friend- ship, from the question of what it is for friendship to be valuable to the question of what is involved in valuing friendship. These are different questions. People value many things that are not in fact valuable. What I want to suggest, however, is that the claim that friendship is valuable is best understood as the claim that it is properly valued, that is to say, that the reasons recognized by someone who values friendship are in fact good reasons. Consider, as a contrast with friendship, “fanship”: the state of being a devoted admirer of some famous person, such as a movie star, a singer, or an athlete. Some people value fanship. That is, they think that being a fan makes life better, more enjoyable, and more interesting. They may also think that it is important to be a good fan: that there is good reason, say, to see all the movies in which their favorite star appears as soon as they come out, and to defend the star when others criticize her, and that it would be a great thing to see the star in person, even from a great distance. According to the account of value I am suggesting, to hold that fanship is not valuable is just to hold that these reasons are not good reasons, or at least that a person

who gave them great weight in shaping his life would be making a mistake. On the other hand, to hold that fanship, or friendship, is

valuable is to hold that the reasons involved in valuing it are good ones and that it is therefore appropriate to give this notion an important place in shaping one’s life.

If this claim is accepted, and if my claims about the reasons involved in valuing friendship are correct, then the claim that friendship is valuable is not primarily a claim that it is “to be promoted” or that a world in which it exists is for that reason a better one, although it will be true that if friendship is valuable then there are reasons to seek it for oneself and to promote it for others whom one cares about. When we consider the question of value in the way that Moore recom- mended, by asking what makes a world better, it is only reasons of this latter kind—reasons to have friendship occur—that we notice. These reasons are teleological and, in many cases, impartial. But when we take into account the perspective of the people who are friends, a wider range of reasons comes into view. These reasons are not in general impartial; some are not teleological at all; and among those that are, only a few are, directly or indirectly, reasons to bring it about that more friendship occurs. To claim that friendship is valuable is, on the view I am offering, to claim that all these reasons are good reasons.

I believe that much the same thing could be said about the value of other relationships commonly, and plausibly, held to be good, such as family relations. This may not be surprising, since friendship and family ties may be seen as moral values and “agent-relative” ones. But I believe that a similar structure can be seen in the reasons involved in values of other kinds such as the value of intellectual inquiry and understanding. I will discuss the case of scienti~c inquiry, but I think that what I will say holds as well for other forms of intellectual activity, in history, for example, or philosophy or mathematics.

The claim that science and scienti~c knowledge are intrinsically valuable supports a number of different conclusions about the reasons people have. One is that people who have the relevant ability and opportunity have reason to take up scienti~c inquiry as a career and to devote their lives to it. Second, those who take up science as a career have reason to try to be good scientists: to work hard, to choose lines of inquiry that are signi~cant rather than those that are easiest or will get the most attention, to report their results accurately and in a way that will be helpful to other inquirers, and to treat the results of others

fairly, recognizing their merits rather than simply emphasizing their weaknesses and de~ciencies. Someone who failed to see strong reason to do these things could be said not to understand or not to care about the value of science, and to be in it just for the sake of money or fame or the thrill of competition.

Third, if science is valuable then those of us who are not scientists have reason to support scienti~c work as taxpayers or benefactors. Fourth, we have reason to study science and try to understand it. If science is valuable, then this kind of study is worthwhile, even if our understanding will always be highly imperfect. Finally, we have reason to respect science as an undertaking and to admire its achievements and those who make them.

One might try to account for all these reasons on a strictly teleologi- cal basis. Such an account could hold that the value of science lies, fundamentally, in the value of certain states of affairs: a world in which fundamental truths about nature are understood or investigated is for that reason a better world. People have reason to take up science as a career if they would be able to contribute to bringing about these valuable results. They have reason to be “good scientists” because by doing this they are likely to make a greater contribution of this kind. Others have reason to promote and support scienti~c work because this also promotes these valuable results. It is a little more dif~cult to explain, on this basis, why nonscientists have reason to study it. Per- haps this might be explained by broadening the class of valuable states to include the spread of even imperfect understanding. But it is easy to see why scienti~c work should be admired, namely, because it pro- duces valuable results.

Such a view has great simplicity and evident appeal. It is much more plausible than the analogous claim that all the reasons involved in valuing friendship _ow from the goodness of having friendships occur. But I do not think that such a view offers the most plausible account of the intrinsic value of science and scienti~c knowledge. To see this, consider ~rst what the valuable states of affairs on which such a view would be based might be taken to be.

First, through their applications in technology, scienti~c achieve- ments contribute to enlarging the range of things we can do, and to making our lives longer, safer, and more comfortable. These effects are no doubt valuable, but since they are not what people have in mind in claiming that scienti~c knowledge is intrinsically valuable, I will set them aside.

Second, engaging in scienti~c study and inquiry can be challenging, exciting, and absorbing, and it therefore enriches the lives of those who engage in it. But other pursuits are also challenging, exciting, and absorbing: mountain climbing and yacht racing, for example. Insofar as scienti~c inquiry is thought to make a greater contribution than these pursuits to the quality of the lives of those who engage in it, this is, I assume, because it is thought to be a more worthwhile way to use one’s time and talents. Perhaps it is thought worthwhile because of the practical bene~ts I have just mentioned, but I do not believe that this is the only reason. If it is not, then the distinctive contribution that devoting one’s life to scienti~c activity makes to the quality of that life depends on the fact that the activity is intrinsically worthwhile, rather than the value of the activity depending on its contribution to the well-being of those who engage in it.

This suggests that the distinctive intrinsic value of science must derive, on a purely teleological account, from the fact that states of affairs in which scienti~c knowledge has been attained (and perhaps also ones in which scienti~c inquiry is engaged in in the right way) are better states of affairs and therefore “to be promoted.” This way of putting the matter leads to some puzzling questions. Suppose that what is intrinsically valuable is true belief about the world, particularly about its most fundamental features. There is the slight problem that at any given time much of what science holds to be true about the most fundamental features of nature is likely to be false. Perhaps, then, it is valuable because it is a step on the way to attaining true belief. Or perhaps what is valuable is not just the true belief that results from scienti~c inquiry, but the occurrence of that inquiry itself, at least when it is done well. This is in some ways more plausible, but we would then need an independent explanation of how the value of science gives even nonscientists reason to try to understand it, to the degree that they can.

The mere fact that there are problems about how this view should be formulated does not, of course, show that it is mistaken. In my view what is most implausible about such an account, however, is the basic idea that we should understand all the reasons we have to engage in, support, and study science by ~rst identifying some class of ways that it would be better for the world to be, and then explaining these reasons by considering how the activities they count in favor of help to make the world be like this. There are some cases in which this order of explanation seems very plausible, as in the case of pain. A state of

affairs in which I am in pain is, for that reason, a worse state of affairs for me, and this fact gives rise to reasons to do what is necessary to prevent it. But it is not always possible to identify outcomes whose independent value can plausibly be seen as a source of the reasons we have. In particular, even though the actions involved in scienti~c in- quiry and study are each aimed at some end, the best account of our reasons for those actions may not _owfromthe value of these results

toour concern with them.

An alternative line of explanation would begin with the idea that we have good reason to be curious about the natural world and to try to understand how it works. A person who responds to nature in this way is right to do so, and someone who fails to have this response is missing something. Since science is by far the most successful attempt at such understanding, studying it and trying to contribute to it are things we have reason to do: both are rational responses to our justi~ed curiosity about the world. It follows that I have reason to adopt the goal of reading good books about science for laymen, and that scientists have reason to adopt the goal of coming up with new and better theories (quite apart from the usefulness of the knowledge that may be so gained). So we each correctly regard the achievement of these goals as good (even intrinsically good). But this is a conclusion from the claims about reasons I have mentioned, not their source.

Things look slightly different in this respect when we consider the matter from the point of view of a patron or benefactor, someone who gives money to support scienti~c research, or to educate the public about science. Such a person is properly moved by the thought that it is good that scienti~c research should occur and that more people should appreciate its results. The reasons that move such a person are like those that ~gure in the Moorean perspective I mentioned earlier, and like some reasons that could move a person to promote the friend- ships of others. I am not suggesting that they are not good reasons, but only that they are not as central as might be supposed to the idea of the value of science.

A similar divergence of perspectives shows up when we consider two other reasons for thinking that the pursuit of scienti~c knowledge is a good thing to have occur. For example, science is to be admired and promoted because it is a form of human excellence, involving highly developed intellectual skills devoted to questions that merit inquiry. But from the point of view of practitioners of science, the reason for striving and thinking in the ways that constitute this excellence is that

this is the best way of inquiring into their subject, not simply that it produces instances of excellence. Science may also merit our respect and admiration as a complex cooperative endeavor, extending over time and yoking together the highly developed capacities of many individuals. Someone who failed to appreciate this human and social aspect of science, and valued it only for its results, would be missing something important. But from the point of view of a practitioner, understanding this aspect of the value of science involves seeing rea- sons to respect the norms of the scienti~c community, not just reasons