A common notion about value theory is that it either is gaseously diffuse or consists of an infinity of pedantic quibbles masquerading as precision, that there is no starting place. In fact, there are a number of intelligible starting places and if we are to have any confidence in the conclusions we reach we must first achieve an overview of all of them. In this chapter I attempt to furnish such an overview in the form of a classification of all possible bases for value thinking, a classification that makes it possible to assess and compare the different theories and...

One of the possible answers to the question “on what basis are value judgments discussable?” is that there is no such basis. I call this reply “skepticism.” Hume defined and condemned the position:

Those who have denied the reality of moral distinctions may be ranked among the disingenuous disputants, nor is it conceivable that any human creature could seriously believe that all characters and actions were alike entitled to the affection and regard of everyone.¹

The value skeptic asserts that all value distinctions are false or meaningless. To the fundamental moral question—how shall a man live?—the skeptic replies...

Whatever their ultimate origin, value judgments are events that occur only in individual minds. The more crucial the decision, the greater the sense of isolation. It is “lonely at the top”; at the level of our personal affairs we are continually reminded that “only you can decide.” Some people find such momentary solitudes unbearable. They seek external legitimation for their decisions—custom, religion, authority, advisors. To the extent to which they succeed in escaping personal responsibility, they abdicate a human function: they cease to make value judgments at all.

Because the parroting of value terms does not constitute a value...

As far removed as possible from the individualism just discussed are those suggested bases for value judgments that transcend not only the individual but also our society and even our species. These bases have been said to be God, Nature, or Reason. Many have thought that if values are to have the authority to command us—and it ought to be no ephemeral or ignoble basis on which we wager the direction of our lives—then they must have a foundation more enduring than the vagaries of the individual mind or state of feeling, less bewilderingly various than the customs...

All humans are born into and live subject to a complex of natural and cultural constraints. Each constraint is the infliction of a defeat, the denial of outlet to a passion.¹ The passions are all but infinite in their demands; their defeat is common and often necessary. Therefore, we prize whatever capacities we have to arrive at the satisfaction of the feelings, especially of the stronger and more enduring ones. Our two principal powers to enhance the quality of our lives are our ability to understand the world within which our feelings must find their fulfillment and then to make...

There are two kinds of human nature theory, one explained and defended in Part II, and another against which I argue in this chapter. The difference between the two was first set forth by James Harrington, a contemporary of Hobbes, who referred to the latter’s reductive, aprioristic method as the “geometrical” and to his own empirical, traditional method as the “anatomical.”¹ We turn now to consider the geometrical human nature theories, theories that reduce motivation to some single passion. Parts of this chapter are preliminary to the discussion in Part II.

The geometricians and the anatomists agree that the origin...

We have before us two major and distinct alternative models of the relationship between the individual and her or his society. For one of these models the species-typical human is the elemental reality; culture is the product of the interplay of the passions of large numbers of individuals. The basic laws of society are the laws of human nature. The other model, here called “culturalism,” reverses this understanding. Culturalism holds that social laws are more basic than the laws, if there are any, of human nature; society, the laws of society, determine the nature of the individuals who compose the...

The intellectual and practical difficulties of culturalist theory are such that it ought to be rejected as a basis for value judgments or as an ultimate basis for explanation in the social sciences. Three interesting claims of culturalist theory will be discussed in the context of the writings of three important culturalist thinkers. If the reader should disagree with my interpretation of what Burke, Sumner, or Durkheim thought, I am willing to substitute for them “Burke,” “Sumner,” and “Durkheim,” characters I invent to maintain certain theses. The claims discussed are that culturalist theory can understand and prescribe for social change,...

The culturalism considered so far seeks to find the laws of societies in general or the laws of particular societies at some particular time. It studies human societies as one might study a single ant colony or make a comparative analysis of several colonies. Even when conducted on the mistaken assumption of the existence of irreducible social laws, or of the literal truth of the organic analogy, such studies have proven useful to our understanding of society.

There is a variety of culturalism that seems quite the reverse of useful. Historicists agree with other culturalists that persons, institutions, ideas, and...

Among secular moral philosophers before the seventeenth century, the complete non-reductionist human nature basis of the origin and validation of values seemed too obvious to need defense. Since Hume and Rousseau, that theory has been either unknown or thought to be too absurd to merit argument.¹ However obvious it may once have been, and may again be in the future, contemporary value thinkers do not find it so. Indeed, they do not seem to see it at all, even to refute it. This state of affairs is, I believe, partly the consequence of a commitment to alternative bases, and so...

As it is commonly used, “human nature” is among the vaguest and most useless of explanatory phrases. If we are to make it clear and useful, we need to find a way to fit it into the ordered complex of our other clear and useful ideas and determine its relation to them. We must decide what we mean when we speak of human nature.

A metaphysical or complete definition of human nature is not necessary here, where we are interested in humans only as causal agents, as evaluating bundles of motivations. What we observe of them in this character is...

The respect that researchers acquire for the species they study in the wild is in sharp contrast to the contempt that many people implicitly have for “beasts” or the blurring sentimentality of those who try to love indiscriminately all that lives. Animals are not simple. The infinitely intricate orderliness that physicists find in matter, that biologists find overlaid upon this in organisms, is rediscovered at the levels of animal behavior and human action. That orderliness is determined, and although the determinism we insist on finding in nature becomes ever more complex and obscure as we go from atoms to cells...

It is impossible to reason, deductively or inductively, from facts or concepts to a value judgment. That is, we cannot reason from an is to an ought, from description to prescription, from knowing to doing. This is why, in general, contemporary philosophers fail to produce positive moral theory. They assume they must base their thinking on public facts and concepts. Intentionality, sentiments, attitudes, feelings, action as opposed to behavior, in short, value, fall through their intellectual nets. As for the culturalists, unless they absurdly attribute immanent goals to society or history, they cannot discuss a value judgment on its merits...

The non-reductionist human nature theory is accurately described as “emotivist.” Value judgments begin with, derive their force and direction from, are eventually about, feelings. People with similar feelings can be expected to understand a value judgment made by one of them, and if they have a similar reality orientation, they can be expected not only to understand it but to agree upon it. We all live in much the same world; we have similar senses, intellectual processes, and interests; our culture binds us into a common symbolic system. Value agreement is the norm for our species; later I will discuss...

There is a world of difference between the questions of how we make value judgments and what value judgments we ought to make. How can value judgments be binding upon us? That we do and even must make evaluations is just one more fact about us. Between that fact and the prescriptivity claimed for moral statements there is a significant gap. If values are neither “out there” to be perceived, nor implicit in the rational process with which we attempt to structure and to understand what is out there, then it would appear that the intelligence can know nothing of...

A general theory of value neither implies nor rules out any particular value judgment. The function of such a theory is to show what bases value judgments can and cannot have and to set forth a method for the carrying on of value discussions that have agreement as their end.

Astute readers will easily have detected some value commitments or biases of mine, and some may have concluded that the theory must be false if it “tends” to such commitments or biases. But those who promulgate value theories have no special qualifications for making good value judgments. They are as...