Theory of Value

The chief stimulus to the development of the general theory of value as a distinct field of psychological and philosophical study, came, however, from the work of A. Meinong (1853-192o) and C. von Ehrenfels (1850– ). A fresh analysis of value in the economic sense had been undertaken by the Austrian economists, Boehm Bauwerk and Von Wieser, which resulted, among other things, in raising many problems of psychological and even philo sophical importance. Under their influence, Meinong and Von Ehrenfels investigated values other than economic, and first under took a systematic study of the entire field of value. The more philosophical developments of the subject are largely due to Mei nong. Starting with the psychological concept of the economists he gradually came to the view of values as objective and independent of their being experienced. At this point the problems of the two modern movements described tended to coalesce. No history of value theory would, however, be complete that did not note the influence of Nietzsche, with his "transvaluation of all values," and the Pragmatic movement in philosophy, for which knowledge is subordinated to practice and truth becomes a form of value.

The Nature of Value.

The fundamental problem of a gen eral theory of value is the question of the nature of all determina tions of value, in other words of so defining it as to include all the forms of value. The immediate and natural answer to this ques tion is to say that value is a determination or quality of an object which involves any sort of appreciation or interest. Such appre ciation, however, involves feeling and ultimately desires or tend encies underlying the feeling. Therefore value is the feeling. Value and feeling of value are the same thing. This is the psycho logical notion of value and the theory of value developed on this basis the psychological theory of value. For many this seems to tell the whole story. The economic theory of value made its first scientific steps by abandoning the notion of value, whether in use or exchange, as an objective quality inherent in the thing, and conceiving it as the function of the relation of the object to satis faction of desire. Following this lead, the general theory of value was in the first place a psychological theory of value. Even in economic theory, however, it is realized that this is only part of the story. Back of desire and feeling lie certain biological tend encies or instincts presupposed by the desire and its satisfaction. So that value becomes, in the words of Orestano, "a biological phenomenon appearing in psychological form." A theory of value that shall be not merely a theory of price must relate the instru mental values of economics to life. Unless we consider these tend

encies merely in their aspect of determinants of price, we must have a quite different notion of value to include them. If this is true of the limited field of economic goods or values, it is all the more true of the intrinsic values which a more general theory of value recognizes. Psychological theories of value thus tend to be come biological theories in the broader sense of the term. Value is defined in terms of survival and enhancement of life, and the biological tendencies are graded according to some standard of value-for-life. It is at this point, however, that the specifically philosophical theories of value arise. We wish to explain and ultimately validate these values by carrying them back to life. But in this it is already assumed that life and its continuance have value. If values get their significance from their teleological rela tion to life and its enhancement, then surely life must get its significance from "absolute" values which it embodies; otherwise life and its relative values lose all genuine meaning. From a more ultimate point of view a knowledge of value is presupposed in any concept of a valuable life. As the result of reflections of this type, two main positions have emerged in the general philosophical theory of value. Either value is conceived of as a "logically primi tive" concept, and therefore as ultimately indefinable, as are certain other ultimate concepts in philosophy, or else it is con ceived of as function of the coherent organization of life or expe rience as a whole.

It may be said without hesitation that value theory is to-day predominantly philosophical rather than psychological. This does not mean, however, that the psychological study of the processes of valuation is not an important part of the general theory. The psychological question is what goes on in consciousness when we value, and while an answer to this question will neither tell us what value ultimately is, nor afford us a standard of value which will enable us to form a system or scale of values, it nevertheless throws light on many questions. The most important contribu tions here are, perhaps, the studies of the mutations or transvalu ations of values. The popular interest aroused by Nietzsche in his Genealogy of Morals has found a scientific echo in the study of the phenomena, causes and laws of the mutations of values.

A notable feature of modern value theory is the interpretation of history as a value science, or part of a philosophy of values.