A value judgment is a judgment Judgement is the evaluation of evidence in the making of a decision. The term has three distinct uses: of the rightness Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement — i.e. rights are normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. The concept of rights is often fundamental to civilized societies, and it is of vital importance in such disciplines or wrongness A wrong or being wrong is a concept in law, ethics, and science. In a colloquial sense, wrongness usually refers to a state of incorrectness, inaccuracy, error or miscalculation in any number of contexts. More specifically, being "wrong" refers to a situation wherein an individual has made an error or misjudgment of something, or of the usefulness In economics, utility is a measure of the relative satisfaction from, or desirability of, consumption of various goods and services. Given this measure, one may speak meaningfully of increasing or decreasing utility, and thereby explain economic behavior in terms of attempts to increase one's utility of something, based on a personal view. As a generalization, a value judgment can refer to a judgment based upon a particular set of values A personal and/or cultural value is an absolute or relative ethical value, the assumption of which can be the basis for ethical action. A value system is a set of consistent values and measures. A principle value is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based. Those values which are not physiologically determined and or on a particular value system A value system is a set of consistent ethic values and measures[clarification needed] used for the purpose of ethical or ideological integrity. A well defined value system is a moral code. A related meaning of value judgment is an expedient evaluation based upon limited information at hand, an evaluation undertaken because a decision must be made on short notice.
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Explanation
The term value judgment can be used both in a positive sense, signifying that a judgment must be made taking a value system into account, or in a disparaging sense, signifying a judgment made by personal whim rather than rational, objective Objectivity is both a central and elusive philosophical category. While there is no universally accepted articulation of objectivity, a proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are "mind-independent"—that is, not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity or subject. Contrary to thought.[1]
In its positive sense, recommendation to make a value judgment is an admonition to consider carefully, to avoid whim and impetuousness, and search for consonance with one's deeper convictions.
In its disparaging sense the term value judgment implies a conclusion is insular, one-sided, and not objective — contrasting with judgments based upon deliberation, balance and rationality.
Value judgment also can refer to a tentative judgment based on a considered appraisal of the information at hand, taken to be incomplete and evolving, for example, a value judgment on whether to launch a military attack, or as to procedure in a medical emergency.[2] In this case the quality of judgment suffers because the information available is incomplete as a result of exigency, rather than as a result of cultural or personal limitations.
Most commonly the term value judgment refers to an individual's opinion. Of course, the individual's opinion is formed to a degree by their belief system, and the culture to which they belong. So a natural extension of the term value judgment is to include declarations seen one way from one value system, but which may be seen differently from another. Conceptually this extension of definition is related both to the anthropological Anthropology is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and social sciences. The term "anthropology", pronounced /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/, is from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human", and -λογία, -logia, "discourse" or "study", and was first axiom "cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1" (that is, that cultural meaning derives from a context) and to the term "moral relativism Descriptive relativism is the observation that different cultures have different moral standards. Descriptive relativists do not necessarily affirm or deny the existence of a single correct normative appraisal, given the same set of circumstances. Likewise, they do not necessarily make any meta-ethical commitments to the semantics, ontology, or" (that is, that moral and ethical propositions are not universal truths, but stem from cultural context). In the pejorative sense, a value judgment formed within a specific value system may be parochial, and may be subject to dispute in a wider audience.
Nonjudgmental
Nonjudgmental is a descriptor that conveys the opposite meaning to the pejorative sense of value judgment: it expresses avoidance of personal opinion and reflex "knee-jerk" reactions.
Judgment call
Judgment call is a term describing decision made between alternatives that are not clearly right or wrong, and so must be made on a personal basis.
Value-neutral
Value-neutral is a related adjective suggesting independence from a value system. For example, the classification of an object sometimes depends upon context: Is it a tool A tool is a device that can be used to produce or achieve something, but that is not consumed in the process. Colloquially a tool can also be a procedure or process used for a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different assignations such as Instrument, Utensil, Implement, Machine, Apparatus or a weapon A weapon is an instrument used for the purpose of causing harm or damage to persons, animals or structures. Weapons are used in hunting, attack, self-defense, or defense in combat and range from simple implements like clubs and spears to complicated modern machines such as intercontinental ballistic missiles. One who possesses or carries a weapon, an artifact or an ancestor? The object itself might be considered value-neutral being neither good nor bad, neither useful nor useless, neither significant nor trite, until placed in some social context.
A famous quote from mathematician G. H. Hardy Godfrey Harold Hardy FRS, known as G. H. Hardy was a prominent English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis:[3]
A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.
– Godfrey Harold Hardy in A Mathematician's Apology (1941)
For a discussion of whether technology is value neutral, see Martin and Schinzinger[4], and Wallace.[5] Oddly, an item also may have value that is value-neutral to the extent that some of its utility or import were evident regardless of social context, for example, oxygen.
Value judgments and their context
Some argue that true objectivity is impossible, that even the most rigorous rational analysis is founded on the set of values accepted in the course of analysis. See Free On-Line Dictionary of Philosophy. Consequently, all conclusions are necessarily value judgments (and therefore maybe suspect). Of course, putting all conclusions in one category does nothing to distinguish between them, and is therefore a useless descriptor except as a rhetorical device intended to discredit a position claiming higher authority.
As an example of a more nuanced view, scientific "truths" are considered objective, but are held tentatively, with the understanding that more careful evidence and/or wider experience might change matters. Further, a scientific view (in the sense of a conclusion based upon a value system) is a value judgment based upon rigorous evaluation and wide consensus. With this example in mind, characterizing a view as a value judgment is vague without description of the context surrounding it.
However, as noted in the first segment of this article, in common usage the term value judgment has a much simpler meaning with context simply implied, not specified.
See also
- Cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1
- Moral relativism Descriptive relativism is the observation that different cultures have different moral standards. Descriptive relativists do not necessarily affirm or deny the existence of a single correct normative appraisal, given the same set of circumstances. Likewise, they do not necessarily make any meta-ethical commitments to the semantics, ontology, or
- Immanent evaluation
- Gilles Deleuze Gilles Deleuze , (18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher of the late 20th century. From the early 1960s until his death, Deleuze wrote many influential works on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular books were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (
- Transcendence (philosophy) In philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey three different but somehow related primary meanings, all of them derived from the word's literal meaning , of climbing or going beyond: one sense that originated in Ancient philosophy, one in Medieval philosophy, and one in modern philosophy
Notes and references
- ^ Michael Scriven (KF Schaffner & RS Cohen, eds.) (1974). Philosophy of Science Association PSA: Boston studies in the philosophy of science, v. 20. Boston: Dordrecht:Reidel. p. 219 ff. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 9027704082. http://books.google.com/books?id=nhY1vAIbdakC&pg=PA220&dq=%22value+judgment%22&lr=&as_brr=0&sig=XpsXOsBYNL5ls6imUMMcwQTrr8k#PPA219,M1.
- ^ Kristin Shrader-Frechette (Cohen, R. S., Gavroglou, K., Stachel, J. J., & Wartofsky, M. W., eds.) (1995). The case of Yucca Mountain: Science, politics and social practice. Dordrecht/New York: Springer. p. 204 ff. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0792329899. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZIo86_X2FAcC&pg=PA205&dq=%22value+judgment%22&lr=&as_brr=0&sig=hpsRKD85pQNkr-cHZLP64lvWDhQ#PPA204,M1.
- ^ Bill Swainson, Anne H. Soukhanov (2000). Encarta Book of Quotations. Macmillan. p. 408. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0312230001. http://books.google.com/books?id=Af84fBmzmVYC&pg=PA408&lpg=PA408&dq=Hardy+%22a+science+is+said+to+be+useful+if+its+development%22&source=web&ots=Fo72KKRak4&sig=XhYEjb6poy_avtezBVnwHNF26Gk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result.
- ^ Mike W Martin & Schinzinger R (2005). Ethics in engineering (Fourth Edition ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 279. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0072831154. http://books.google.com/books?id=64iYMPnD3X0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=centrifugal+turntable&lr=&as_brr=0&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA12,M1.
- ^ Philip Russell Wallace (1991). Physics. World Scientific. Chapter 1. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 997150930X. http://books.google.com/books?id=64iYMPnD3X0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=centrifugal+turntable&lr=&as_brr=0&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA12,M1.
Categories: Philosophical terminology | Ethics This category puts articles relevant to well-known ethical debates and decisions in one place - including practical problems long known in philosophy, and the more abstract subjects in law, politics, and some professions and sciences. It lists also those core concepts essential to understanding ethics as applied in various religions, some | Political philosophy Categories: Social philosophy | Politics | Subfields of political science | Branches of philosophy | Social philosophy Social philosophy is the philosophical study of interesting questions about social behavior . Social philosophy addresses a wide range of subjects, from individual meanings to legitimacy of laws, from the social contract to criteria for revolution, from the functions of everyday actions to the effects of science on culture, from changes in human | Continental philosophy Theodor W. Adorno · Louis Althusser · Giorgio Agamben · Hannah Arendt · Alain Badiou · Henri Bergson · Albert Camus · Gilles Deleuze · Jacques Derrida · Johann Fichte · Michel Foucault · Frankfurt School · Jürgen Habermas · Georg Hegel · Martin Heidegger · Edmund Husserl · Alexandre Kojève · Jacques Lacan · Claude Lévi-Strauss | 20th-century philosophy | Value Categories: Ethics | Core issues in ethics | Evaluation | Metaphysics | Axiological theories | Judgment
