WEBVTT

NOTE 1. Judgments of Value

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.960
PART 1. VALUE

2
00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.680
CHAPTER 1. JUDGMENTS OF VALUE

3
00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:16.600
1. JUDGMENTS OF VALUE AND PROPOSITIONS OF EXISTENCE

4
00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:22.920
Propositions asserting existence, affirmative existential propositions, or non-existence,

5
00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:29.240
negative existential propositions, are descriptive. They assert something about the state of the

6
00:00:29.240 --> 00:00:33.180
the whole universe or of parts of the universe.

7
00:00:33.180 --> 00:00:38.060
With regard to them, questions of truth and falsity are significant.

8
00:00:38.060 --> 00:00:42.680
They must not be confounded with judgments of value.

9
00:00:42.680 --> 00:00:45.580
Judgments of value are voluntaristic.

10
00:00:45.580 --> 00:00:51.520
They express feelings, tastes, or preferences of the individual who utters them.

11
00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:56.580
With regard to them, there cannot be any question of truth and falsity.

12
00:00:56.580 --> 00:01:02.140
They are ultimate and not subject to any proof or evidence.

13
00:01:02.140 --> 00:01:06.500
Judgments of value are mental acts of the individual concerned.

14
00:01:06.500 --> 00:01:11.660
As such, they must be sharply distinguished from the sentences by means of which an individual

15
00:01:11.660 --> 00:01:17.620
tries to inform other people about the content of his judgments of value.

16
00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:22.300
A man may have some reason to lie about his valuations.

17
00:01:22.300 --> 00:01:26.560
We may describe this state of affairs in the following way.

18
00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:32.380
Every judgment of value is in itself also a fact of the actual state of the universe

19
00:01:32.380 --> 00:01:37.200
and as such may be the topic of existential propositions.

20
00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:43.940
The sentence, I prefer Beethoven to Lahar, refers to a judgment of value.

21
00:01:43.940 --> 00:01:50.660
If looked upon as an existential proposition, it is true if I really prefer Beethoven and

22
00:01:50.660 --> 00:01:57.720
Act Accordingly, and false if I in fact prefer lahar and, for some reasons, lie about my

23
00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:01.660
real feelings, tastes, or preferences.

24
00:02:01.660 --> 00:02:08.900
In an analogous way, the existential proposition, Paul prefers Beethoven to lahar, may be true

25
00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:10.820
or false.

26
00:02:10.820 --> 00:02:16.180
In declaring that with regard to a judgment of value, there cannot be any question of

27
00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:18.260
truth or falsity.

28
00:02:18.260 --> 00:02:23.500
We refer to the judgment as such and not to the sentences communicating the content of

29
00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:27.180
such a judgment of value to other people.

30
00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:29.060
2.

31
00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:32.380
VALUATION AND ACTION

32
00:02:32.380 --> 00:02:38.440
A judgment of value is purely academic if it does not impel the man who utters it to

33
00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:40.340
any action.

34
00:02:40.340 --> 00:02:45.780
There are judgments which must remain academic because it is beyond the power of the individual

35
00:02:45.780 --> 00:02:49.540
Man is able to embark upon any action directed by them.

36
00:02:49.540 --> 00:02:55.720
A man may prefer a starry sky to the starless sky, but he cannot attempt to substitute the

37
00:02:55.720 --> 00:03:00.820
former state which he likes better for the latter he likes less.

38
00:03:00.820 --> 00:03:06.300
The significance of value judgments consists precisely in the fact that they are the springs

39
00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:08.620
of human action.

40
00:03:08.620 --> 00:03:14.560
Guided by his valuations, man is intent upon substituting conditions that please him better

41
00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:22.920
for Conditions which he deems less satisfactory. He employs means in order to attain ends sought.

42
00:03:22.920 --> 00:03:27.620
Hence the history of human affairs has to deal with the judgments of value that impelled

43
00:03:27.620 --> 00:03:33.640
men to act and directed their conduct. What happened in history cannot be discovered and

44
00:03:33.640 --> 00:03:41.360
narrated without referring to the various valuations of the acting individuals. It is not the task

45
00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:46.520
It is the task of the historian, qua-historian, to pass judgments of value on the individuals

46
00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:50.640
whose conduct is the theme of his inquiries.

47
00:03:50.640 --> 00:03:56.200
As a branch of knowledge, history utters existential propositions only.

48
00:03:56.200 --> 00:04:02.080
But these existential propositions often refer to the presence or absence of definite judgments

49
00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:06.520
of value in the minds of the acting individuals.

50
00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:11.860
It is one of the tasks of the specific understanding of the historical sciences to establish what

51
00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:16.720
content the value judgments of the acting individuals had.

52
00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:23.440
It is a task of history, for example, to trace back the origin of India's caste system to

53
00:04:23.440 --> 00:04:29.120
the values which prompted the conduct of the generations who developed, perfected and preserved

54
00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:30.120
it.

55
00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:35.500
It is its further task to discover what the consequences of this system were and how these

56
00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:40.260
These effects influenced the value judgments of later generations.

57
00:04:40.260 --> 00:04:45.000
But it is not the business of the historian to pass judgments of value on the system as

58
00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:48.800
such to praise or to condemn it.

59
00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:52.500
He has to deal with its relevance for the course of affairs.

60
00:04:52.500 --> 00:04:57.400
He has to compare it with the designs and intentions of its authors and supporters and

61
00:04:57.400 --> 00:05:00.560
to depict its effects and consequences.

62
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:06.360
He has to ask whether or not the means employed were fit to attain the ends the acting

63
00:05:06.360 --> 00:05:07.860
individual sought.

64
00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:14.240
It is a fact that hardly any historian has fully avoided passing judgments of value.

65
00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:19.880
But such judgments are always merely incidental to the genuine tasks of history.

66
00:05:19.880 --> 00:05:24.200
In uttering them, the author speaks as an individual judging from the point of view

67
00:05:24.200 --> 00:05:29.560
of his personal valuations, not as a historian.

68
00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:35.760
3. THE SUBJECTIVITY OF VALUATION

69
00:05:35.760 --> 00:05:41.600
All judgments of value are personal and subjective. There are no judgments of value other than

70
00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:49.280
those asserting, I prefer, I like better, I wish. It cannot be denied by anybody that

71
00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:55.060
various individuals disagree widely with regard to their feelings, tastes, and preferences,

72
00:05:55.060 --> 00:06:00.500
And that even the same individuals at various instants of their lives value the same things

73
00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:02.300
in a different way.

74
00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:08.340
In view of this fact, it is useless to talk about absolute and eternal values.

75
00:06:08.340 --> 00:06:13.460
This does not mean that every individual draws his valuations from his own mind.

76
00:06:13.460 --> 00:06:18.020
The immense majority of people take their valuations from the social environments into

77
00:06:18.020 --> 00:06:23.660
which they were born, in which they grew up, that molded their personality and educated

78
00:06:23.660 --> 00:06:24.660
them.

79
00:06:24.660 --> 00:06:29.400
Few men have the power to deviate from the traditional set of values and to establish

80
00:06:29.400 --> 00:06:34.660
their own scale of what appears to be better and what appears to be worse.

81
00:06:34.660 --> 00:06:40.080
What the theorem of the subjectivity evaluation means is that there is no standard available

82
00:06:40.080 --> 00:06:47.220
which would enable us to reject any ultimate judgment of value as wrong, false, or erroneous

83
00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:53.220
in the way we can reject an existential proposition as manifestly false.

84
00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:58.520
It is vain to argue about ultimate judgments of value as we argue about the truth or falsity

85
00:06:58.520 --> 00:07:01.520
of an existential proposition.

86
00:07:01.520 --> 00:07:07.200
As soon as we start to refute by arguments an ultimate judgment of value, we look upon

87
00:07:07.200 --> 00:07:10.940
it as a means to attain definite ends.

88
00:07:10.940 --> 00:07:15.500
But then we merely shift the discussion to another plane.

89
00:07:15.500 --> 00:07:21.340
We no longer view the principle concerned as an ultimate value but as a means to attain

90
00:07:21.340 --> 00:07:26.640
in an Ultimate Value, and we are again faced with the same problem.

91
00:07:26.640 --> 00:07:31.340
We may, for instance, try to show a Buddhist that to act in conformity with the teachings

92
00:07:31.340 --> 00:07:38.340
of his creed results in effects which we consider disastrous, but we are silenced if he replies

93
00:07:38.340 --> 00:07:44.480
that these effects are, in his opinion, lesser evils or no evils at all, compared to what

94
00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:48.800
would result from non-observance of his rules of conduct.

95
00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:55.120
His ideas about the supreme good, happiness and eternal bliss are different from ours.

96
00:07:55.120 --> 00:08:00.120
He does not care for those values his critics are concerned with and seeks for satisfaction

97
00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:03.320
in other things than they do.

98
00:08:03.320 --> 00:08:05.360
4.

99
00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:10.520
THE LOGICAL AND SYNTACTICAL STRUCTURE OF JUDGMENTS OF VALUE

100
00:08:10.520 --> 00:08:15.980
A judgment of value looks upon things from the point of view of the man who utters it.

101
00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:19.740
It does not assert anything about things as they are.

102
00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:25.180
It manifests a man's effective response to definite conditions of the universe as compared

103
00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:28.200
with other definite conditions.

104
00:08:28.200 --> 00:08:29.380
Value is not intrinsic.

105
00:08:29.380 --> 00:08:34.740
It is not in things and conditions but in the valuing subject.

106
00:08:34.740 --> 00:08:41.140
It is impossible to ascribe value to one thing or state of affairs only.

107
00:08:41.140 --> 00:08:46.340
Condition invariably compares one thing or condition with another thing or condition.

108
00:08:46.340 --> 00:08:52.460
It grades various states of the external world, it contrasts one thing or state, whether real

109
00:08:52.460 --> 00:08:58.560
or imagined, with another thing or state, whether real or imagined, and arranges both

110
00:08:58.560 --> 00:09:04.040
in a scale of what the author of the judgment likes better and what less.

111
00:09:04.040 --> 00:09:08.660
It may happen that the judging individual considers both things or conditions envisaged

112
00:09:08.660 --> 00:09:10.420
as equal.

113
00:09:10.420 --> 00:09:17.100
He is not concerned whether there is A or B, then his judgment of value expresses indifference.

114
00:09:17.100 --> 00:09:21.540
No action can result from such a neutral disposition.

115
00:09:21.540 --> 00:09:26.700
Sometimes the utterance of a judgment of value is elliptical and makes sense only if appropriately

116
00:09:26.700 --> 00:09:28.940
completed by the hearer.

117
00:09:28.940 --> 00:09:35.500
I don't like measles means, I prefer the absence of measles to its presence.

118
00:09:35.500 --> 00:09:40.820
Such incompleteness is the mark of all references to freedom.

119
00:09:40.820 --> 00:09:48.500
Freedom invariably means freedom from, absence of, something referred to expressly or implicitly.

120
00:09:48.500 --> 00:09:54.000
The grammatical form of such judgments may be qualified as negative, but it is vain to

121
00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:59.020
deduce from this idiomatic attire of a class of judgments of value any statements about

122
00:09:59.020 --> 00:10:03.940
their content and to blame them for an alleged negativism.

123
00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:09.620
Every judgment of value allows of a formulation in which the more highly valued thing or state

124
00:10:09.620 --> 00:10:16.300
is logically expressed in both a positive and a negative way, although sometimes a language

125
00:10:16.300 --> 00:10:20.300
may not have developed the appropriate term.

126
00:10:20.300 --> 00:10:27.540
Freedom of the press implies the rejection or negation of censorship, but, stated explicitly,

127
00:10:27.540 --> 00:10:32.980
it means a state of affairs in which the author alone determines the content of his publication

128
00:10:32.980 --> 00:10:39.320
as distinct from a state in which the police has a right to interfere in the matter.

129
00:10:39.320 --> 00:10:45.240
Action necessarily involves the renunciation of something to which a lower value is assigned

130
00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:49.900
in order to attain or to preserve something to which a higher value is assigned.

131
00:10:49.900 --> 00:10:56.520
Thus, for instance, a definite amount of leisure is renounced in order to reap the product

132
00:10:56.520 --> 00:10:59.400
of a definite amount of labor.

133
00:10:59.400 --> 00:11:06.040
The renunciation of leisure is the means to attain a more highly valued thing or state.

134
00:11:06.040 --> 00:11:11.120
There are men whose nerves are so sensitive that they cannot endure an unvarnished account

135
00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:16.620
of many facts about the physiological nature of the human body and the praxeological character

136
00:11:16.620 --> 00:11:19.000
of human action.

137
00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:23.920
Such people take offense at the statement that man must choose between the most sublime

138
00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:31.600
Things, the loftiest human ideals on the one hand and the wants of his body on the other.

139
00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:36.080
They feel that such statements detract from the nobility of the higher things.

140
00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:40.980
They refuse to notice the fact that there arise in the life of man situations in which

141
00:11:40.980 --> 00:11:49.820
he is forced to choose between fidelity to lofty ideals and such animal urges as feeding.

142
00:11:49.820 --> 00:11:54.780
Whenever man is faced with the necessity of choosing between two things or states, his

143
00:11:54.780 --> 00:12:00.500
decision is a judgment of value no matter whether or not it is uttered in the grammatical

144
00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:04.220
form commonly employed in expressing such judgments.