Value (ethics)

About: Value (ethics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21347 publications have been published within this topic receiving 461372 citations.

Decision-Theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection

Abstract: Our lives are given shape, meaning and value by what we hold dear, by those persons and life projects to which we are especially committed. This implies that when we act we must give a special place to those persons (typically our family and friends) and those projects. But, according to consequentialism classically conceived, the rightness and wrongness of an action is determined by the action's consequences considered impartially, without reference to the agent whose actions they are consequences of. It is the nature of any particular consequence that matters, not the identity of the agent responsible for the consequence. It seems then that consequentialism is in conflict with what makes life worth living. I take this to be one part of Bernard Williams's well-known attack on consequentialism.' One way to reply to it would be to break the implicit connection between acting morally and living a life worth living. Doing what is morally right or morally required is one thing; doing what makes life worth living is another. Hence, runs the reply, it is no refutation of a moral theory that doing as it enjoins would rob life of its shape and meaning. This is a chilling reply and I will say no more about it. My reply will be that consequentialism-properly understood-is perfectly compatible with the right actions for a person being in many cases actions directed toward achieving good consequences for those persons and projects that the agent holds dear. Consequentialism, I will argue, can make plausible sense of the moral agent having and giving expression in action to a special place for family, friends, colleagues, chosen projects, and so on and so forth.

Quantifying the Black Economy: ‘measurement Without Theory’ Yet Again?

Abstract: I shall argue that 'measurement without theory' is a fair description of the published empirical work aimed at guestimating the size of the 'hidden' or 'black economy'.' I shall also argue that a mere guestimate of the overall size of the black economy is of limited value for the policy maker; it is also important to know who is doing what, where, how and why. Then we can see what should and/or can be done about legislating for or against the black economy. In assessing the various attempts to measure the size of the black economy, one should also be aware of a political dimension to some of this work. Perhaps a large and growing black economy is an indication that the economy is overtaxed and over-regulated and a neo-liberal adjustment is needed to free it up? If a large part of the black economy is social security fraud, then maybe unemployment is not really as bad as it looks? Clearly such political conclusions depended on having good theoretical as well as sound quantitative foundations and both these components were generally missing.

Values and Voting

Abstract: We examined relations of the 10 types of values in Schwartz's (1992) theory of voting. Hypotheses were generated by relating the core motivations of each value type to the ideological messages conveyed by party policies and symbols. Eight parties that ran in the 1988 Israeli elections were arrayed by judges on three ideological dimensions: classical liberalism, economic egalitarianism, state and religion. Discriminant analyses yielded a function whose coefficients for value types corresponded to hypotheses for the state and religion dimension and ordered party supporters on this dimension. After dropping religious parties, another value-based function ordered party supporters on the classical liberalism dimension, as predicted. Both functions significantly improved the party classification of voters in a representative national sample (N= 769). Economic egalitarianism, a nonsalient dimension in Israeli politics, was unrelated to values. Results suggest that all types of values may be politically relevant depending on context.