Values

Values are abstract entities that represent the desirable and influence the way entities select actions and evaluate events.

Inspired by Toward A Universal Psychological Structure of Human Values (Schwartz and Bilsky)

A value is a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group, of the desirable which influences the selection from available modes, means, and ends of action.

Values and Value-Orientations in the Theory of Action (Clyde Kluckhohn)

Discussion

Values represent what beings care about¹Curiously, the etymology roots in “be strong”, and then “to be worthwhile”. Axiology is a term for the study of value (goodness). I imagine once asking, “worthwhile in what regard”, one gets to generic measures of utility or value. This loosely connects with the values of variables, too!. Thus, they play an important role in ethics, social sciences, politics²For example, Atatürk‘s values for national sovereignty and modernization (growth) grounded his anti-imperialist stance. Diplomatic relations may be considered an extrinsic value in achieving peace (regional stability)., philosophy, and economics. The notion of values can remain elusive due to their abtract nature, encompassing anything that is considered worthwhile and influences action or evaluation. Principles can be seen as similar to values, representing concretized forms of values. For example, the value of honesty could lead to the principle to “always tell the truth.”

Much study has gone into analyzing the nature and structure of values. One distinction is between intrinsic values that have merit in and of themselves, such as beauty, pleasure, love, flourishing, or enlightenment, and extrinsic/instrumental values, which have derivative value due to their use in serving other values³This is similar to the means-ends distinction made in Kant’s Law of Humanity.. Positive values are to be pursued/increased and negative values are to be avoided/decreased (e.g., pleasure and pain). There is consideration of whether values are absolute or relative to the individual or culture. Schwartz conducted an investigation into universal values with evidence for the following: benevolence, power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, tradition, conformity, and security⁴Spirituality, ‘the goal of finding meaning in life’ was tested, and found not to be present in all cultures. Kluckhohn’s Values Orientation Theory posits that cultures can be distinguished by what they place value on in five key aspects of life: (human) nature, entity-nature relationship, social relations, activity, and time⁵Thus what is considered intrinsic vs instrumental could be culturally relative. E.g., people who enjoy meetings for the meetings sake vs those who wish them to serve a purpose before getting back to work.. Value monists claim there is only one intrinsic value that all others derive from, while value pluralists claim that there are multiple intrinsic values. Value panism holds that everything has intrinsic value⁶If one takes panpsychist idealism to its limit, “human dignity” as an intrinsic value would generalize to a form of panist dignity of being.. Some values are claimed to be incommensurable in that they cannot be reduced to a common measure⁷This would, in my personal opinion, pose a challenge for any economic theory or system that aims to represent all value in a one-dimensional token..

Moral justification is generally held to be grounded in values. Thus universal normative moral claims will make recourse to universal values (or quantify over all possible values, perhaps with some reasonable constraints). Moral dilemmas can be seen as stemming from value conflicts, to be resolved via (contextualized) value prioritization.

In the formalization, values are not heavily utilized. I define values as abstract entities. I specify some meaning postulates for what it might mean for an agent to hold a value: that values represent desiderata, that values influence decisions and judgments, and that decisions and judgments are influenced by values.

SUMO

(documentation Value EnglishLanguage "Values are abstract entities that guide decision-making processes and influence the evaluation of events and actions.")
(subclass Value Abstract)

(documentation holdsValue EnglishLanguage "(holdsValue ?AGENT ?VALUE) denotes that the agent holds the value.")
(domain holdsValue 1 Agent)
(domain holdsValue 2 Value)
(instance holdsValue BinaryPredicate)

(=>
  (holdsValue ?AGENT ?VALUE)
  (exists (?DESIDERATUM)
    (and
      (desires ?AGENT ?DESIDERATUM)
      (represents ?VALUE ?DESIDERATUM))))

(=> 
    (instance ?VALUE Value)
    (exists (?AGENT)
      (holdsValue ?AGENT ?VALUE)))

Values are abstract entities. To hold a value is a binary predicate among an agent and a value. If an agent holds a value, then there exists a desideratum such that the agent desires this desideratum and the value represents the desideratum. The claim may be too strong, but one can say that all instantiated values are held by some agent.

Every instance of deciding and judging is likely influenced by some value.

(=>
  (instance ?DECIDE Deciding)
  (modalAttribute 
    (exists (?VALUE)
      (and
        (instance ?VALUE Value)
        (influences ?VALUE ?DECIDE))) Likely))

(=>
  (instance ?JUDGE Judging)
  (modalAttribute 
    (exists (?VALUE)
      (and
        (instance ?VALUE Value)
        (influences ?VALUE ?JUDGE))) Likely))

If an agent holds a value, then there is likely a decision or a judgment of the agent influenced by the value.

(=>
  (holdsValue ?AGENT ?VALUE)
  (modalAttribute
    (or
      (exists (?DECIDE)
        (and
          (instance ?DECIDE Deciding)
          (agent ?DECIDE ?AGENT)
          (influences ?VALUE ?DECIDE)))
      (exists (?JUDGE)
      (and
        (instance ?JUDGE Judging)
        (agent ?JUDGE ?AGENT)
        (influences ?VALUE ?JUDGE)))) Likely))

If an agent holds a value and is making a decision where the value is relevant, then the value likely influences the decision⁸I struggle with the directionality of relevance. I think this direction holds because one could generally claim that a value is relevant when considerations of the value could be factored into considerations of arguments for a decision, even if one doesn’t hold this value. However, a decision could be relevant to a value for the service it provides in furthering the value, e.g., hedonism.. Likewise for judgments.

(=>
  (and
    (holdsValue ?AGENT ?VALUE)
    (instance ?DECIDE Deciding)
    (agent ?DECIDE ?AGENT)
    (relevant ?VALUE ?DECIDE))
  (modalAttribute (influences ?VALUE ?DECIDE) Likely))

(=>
  (and
    (holdsValue ?AGENT ?VALUE)
    (instance ?JUDGE Judging)
    (agent ?JUDGE ?AGENT)
    (relevant ?VALUE ?JUDGE))
  (modalAttribute (influences ?VALUE ?JUDGE) Likely))

Universal values: Schwartz conjectures that there exists a value such that all cognitive agents hold this value.

(conjectures Schwartz 
  (exists (?VALUE)
    (forall (?AGENTS)
      (=>
        (intance ?AGENT CognitiveAgent)
        (holdsValue ?AGENT ?VALUE)))))