Not said in so many words, but what’s lurking in this piece is the idea that “value” is often not measurable in dollars (or any currency). “Value” is often not an economic concept. Even economists (the good ones) recognize that not all value, and not all “rational choices,” are based on economics.
Great stuff...I too am about 15% closer to a true understanding of "Value", but that's not why I am weighing in...
The Eagles are outstanding, but God help me you are spot on, Led Zeppelin is (by far) the best band that has ever walked the Earth. Not a single bad song in their entire catalog. Thanks for the "link" to the 1969 Live Video's, now the rest of my day is shot - can't pull my eyes away.
Basically, water seems to be more inherently valuable than diamonds because without water, we'd all die. But it's possible for the market cap of diamonds to be greater than the market cap of all water. Do we really value diamonds above water?
The novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" revolves around the narrator's attempt to posit a workable definition of "quality." This effort proceeds along similarly maddening avenues hinted at by your brief attempt to grapple with "value."
> If I had to guess, I would bet that the aggregate demand for slaves throughout human history up to this point is positive.
I don't think so. Slaves probably valued not being slaves more than slave owners valued having slaves. There are surely exceptions with well-fed personal slaves, but overall most mine worker slaves probably had a lot more negative demand than people had for the products they produced.
Of course, slaves didn't have the means to convert their desires to economic pressure, so from that perspective you're still right.
Value has a little bit of that "I know it where I see it energy". I have a theory about values that they should be read in other people as sort of a plumage or display. Ultimately there is no way to measure the value of Hotel California compared to Stairway to Heaven. The passion and the intensity that we would use to defend or otherwise defend our opinion would be a display to other people about what sort of person we were. This means that the things we value can be used like peacock feathers to attract others or like the stripes of a toxic frog, warning off people from messing with it. A value isnt really a value until it is expressed. Few people act on values they don't in someway live up to and most of those we call psychopaths.
Good effort. I attacked this problem 50 years ago in an article in the 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑃ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑦 in an article titled "Are Some Aesthetic Judgments Empirically True?" My answer was "yes", which brought me immediately under thunderous fire from the 𝐽𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑒𝑠𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑟𝑡 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑚. My approach was different from yours, but analogous: consider the difference between "I like this X" and "This is a good X". "like" (as is "popular") is a psycho-socio predicate. "good" is a value predicate. To back up either, you must use different kinds of arguments. One especially good approach you circle around rather nicely: we have clear ideas of what "not-good" means. If we can carve out a sufficiently robust volume of "not-goods" what's left is "good". That's what I did in my article, and it pissed the holy shit out of the artsy-fartsy lemme tell you.
Love your stuff. Keep it up, slay the phonies, eh?!
Putting aside all the interesting points others have made in the comments, I wonder if by your metric something can have value while also being negative in some way?
I might read an article I hate, or a book I hate, but I I come out of that experience changed more than if I read something so generic it makes no impression on me. Conflicting views challenge my own opnion, they may make me harden or soften in places, or at the very least more open to different points of view, rather than wrapping myself in a bubble. Bad fiction makes me realise what type of prose or plot I treasure, and may influence future reading (or writing) choices. There is even enjoyment in picking it apart, in the same way people can enjoy period dramas because they can point out all the inaccurate clothing choices.
Your experience of The Eagles music enables you to write this article, and thus, I cheekily suggest, your dislike has added value to your life.
I actually low-key don't think flourishing should be an objective component of value.
The flourishing of humanity has its own set of pros and cons (ask any extinct species).
Perhaps instead of flourishing we could look at improving. Improving the state-of-the-art doesn't necessarily mean flourishing/expanding/succeeding. Improving is a deeply personal take on what makes something better than it was before.
Let each of us determine what is good/bad, and let each of us determine what would be better than what we have had in the past. And let's let that be a component of value.
As an economics professor, the main thing that stands out to me is that you don't really have a concept of cost here. You start to approach it with the idea of "negative value", but you're basically defining it as people finding something's existence actively bad, rather than directly imposing costs on someone to create the thing. To use one of your examples, I think if we include the costs imposed on enslaved people themselves (I just want to note here that I'm aware that's an extremely clinical way to describe something horrifying), then slavery throughout human history is extremely negative value. Incorporating this concept, which essentially shifts your idea of value from "aggregate demand" to "aggregate surplus", I think largely obviates the need to include the wishy-washy "for human flourishing" caveat.
I think what you're looking for is utility in a utilitarian (or consequentialist) moral system. I think that how you assign utility to states of the world is up to you, but once you've decided on a system, you can then objectively measure how good things are according to that system.
Heaven's Gate. I am old enough to remember watching Siskel and Ebert rip that one to shreds. Years later, as an adult, I watched some of that hideous sepia-toned abortion. When everybody started roller skating I couldn't help myself, started singing "Xaaaanaduuuuuu, Xanaduuuwoowoo"
But I have not watched Midnight Sky or The Burlyman. Are you saying they are equally bad, or are they ranked in some order of negative value with Troy McClure?
I enjoyed the thought experiment (and, per usual, reading your post), but I feel like any attempt to discern and assign some standard, general value to the things of this world is a doomed venture because value, like personal taste, is inherently intrinsic. What I value isn't necessarily going to be what you value, because our assigning of that value is based on an epic Venn diagram of nearly infinite overlapping personal, cultural, societal, moral, etc, dimensions. To use your movie example, you may value some movie for its high art and endearing message, while I may value some low budget flick for its campy humor and scrappiness. Still another might value one for the hilarious story of how terrible it was that they can now share with others... In short, I don't think value is an inherent, fixed, stable point that can be quantified like money. I think it's an abstract, dynamic, deeply fluid personal judgment. Anyway, my opinion for what it's worth (ie, however you decide to value it)...
I think where I landed on the concept of intrinsic value is that it exists, but we'll never know what it is. It's just too big of a question for any of us to understand. And in the frames of references that humans deal with, I think your description is basically correct: To each his/her own.
Not said in so many words, but what’s lurking in this piece is the idea that “value” is often not measurable in dollars (or any currency). “Value” is often not an economic concept. Even economists (the good ones) recognize that not all value, and not all “rational choices,” are based on economics.
Great stuff...I too am about 15% closer to a true understanding of "Value", but that's not why I am weighing in...
The Eagles are outstanding, but God help me you are spot on, Led Zeppelin is (by far) the best band that has ever walked the Earth. Not a single bad song in their entire catalog. Thanks for the "link" to the 1969 Live Video's, now the rest of my day is shot - can't pull my eyes away.
You'd probably also be interested in the diamond/water paradox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value
Basically, water seems to be more inherently valuable than diamonds because without water, we'd all die. But it's possible for the market cap of diamonds to be greater than the market cap of all water. Do we really value diamonds above water?
Humanity could flourish by repurposing vicious dogs toward destroying Eagles albums.
The novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" revolves around the narrator's attempt to posit a workable definition of "quality." This effort proceeds along similarly maddening avenues hinted at by your brief attempt to grapple with "value."
I glad you mentioned this book. I was going to, but got sidetracked by other stuff. Well done.
> If I had to guess, I would bet that the aggregate demand for slaves throughout human history up to this point is positive.
I don't think so. Slaves probably valued not being slaves more than slave owners valued having slaves. There are surely exceptions with well-fed personal slaves, but overall most mine worker slaves probably had a lot more negative demand than people had for the products they produced.
Of course, slaves didn't have the means to convert their desires to economic pressure, so from that perspective you're still right.
Value has a little bit of that "I know it where I see it energy". I have a theory about values that they should be read in other people as sort of a plumage or display. Ultimately there is no way to measure the value of Hotel California compared to Stairway to Heaven. The passion and the intensity that we would use to defend or otherwise defend our opinion would be a display to other people about what sort of person we were. This means that the things we value can be used like peacock feathers to attract others or like the stripes of a toxic frog, warning off people from messing with it. A value isnt really a value until it is expressed. Few people act on values they don't in someway live up to and most of those we call psychopaths.
Good effort. I attacked this problem 50 years ago in an article in the 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑃ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑦 in an article titled "Are Some Aesthetic Judgments Empirically True?" My answer was "yes", which brought me immediately under thunderous fire from the 𝐽𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑒𝑠𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑟𝑡 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑚. My approach was different from yours, but analogous: consider the difference between "I like this X" and "This is a good X". "like" (as is "popular") is a psycho-socio predicate. "good" is a value predicate. To back up either, you must use different kinds of arguments. One especially good approach you circle around rather nicely: we have clear ideas of what "not-good" means. If we can carve out a sufficiently robust volume of "not-goods" what's left is "good". That's what I did in my article, and it pissed the holy shit out of the artsy-fartsy lemme tell you.
Love your stuff. Keep it up, slay the phonies, eh?!
I’m just here for the Eagles hate.
Putting aside all the interesting points others have made in the comments, I wonder if by your metric something can have value while also being negative in some way?
I might read an article I hate, or a book I hate, but I I come out of that experience changed more than if I read something so generic it makes no impression on me. Conflicting views challenge my own opnion, they may make me harden or soften in places, or at the very least more open to different points of view, rather than wrapping myself in a bubble. Bad fiction makes me realise what type of prose or plot I treasure, and may influence future reading (or writing) choices. There is even enjoyment in picking it apart, in the same way people can enjoy period dramas because they can point out all the inaccurate clothing choices.
Your experience of The Eagles music enables you to write this article, and thus, I cheekily suggest, your dislike has added value to your life.
I actually low-key don't think flourishing should be an objective component of value.
The flourishing of humanity has its own set of pros and cons (ask any extinct species).
Perhaps instead of flourishing we could look at improving. Improving the state-of-the-art doesn't necessarily mean flourishing/expanding/succeeding. Improving is a deeply personal take on what makes something better than it was before.
Let each of us determine what is good/bad, and let each of us determine what would be better than what we have had in the past. And let's let that be a component of value.
Cheers!
The Midnight Sky references kill me every time
As an economics professor, the main thing that stands out to me is that you don't really have a concept of cost here. You start to approach it with the idea of "negative value", but you're basically defining it as people finding something's existence actively bad, rather than directly imposing costs on someone to create the thing. To use one of your examples, I think if we include the costs imposed on enslaved people themselves (I just want to note here that I'm aware that's an extremely clinical way to describe something horrifying), then slavery throughout human history is extremely negative value. Incorporating this concept, which essentially shifts your idea of value from "aggregate demand" to "aggregate surplus", I think largely obviates the need to include the wishy-washy "for human flourishing" caveat.
I think what you're looking for is utility in a utilitarian (or consequentialist) moral system. I think that how you assign utility to states of the world is up to you, but once you've decided on a system, you can then objectively measure how good things are according to that system.
Heaven's Gate. I am old enough to remember watching Siskel and Ebert rip that one to shreds. Years later, as an adult, I watched some of that hideous sepia-toned abortion. When everybody started roller skating I couldn't help myself, started singing "Xaaaanaduuuuuu, Xanaduuuwoowoo"
But I have not watched Midnight Sky or The Burlyman. Are you saying they are equally bad, or are they ranked in some order of negative value with Troy McClure?
The Burlyman, sadly, doesn't exist. It's the deepest of all cuts: It's the movie that Barton Fink writes in Barton fink.
I was too drunk when I watched it. Clearly. I blame the 90s.
I enjoyed the thought experiment (and, per usual, reading your post), but I feel like any attempt to discern and assign some standard, general value to the things of this world is a doomed venture because value, like personal taste, is inherently intrinsic. What I value isn't necessarily going to be what you value, because our assigning of that value is based on an epic Venn diagram of nearly infinite overlapping personal, cultural, societal, moral, etc, dimensions. To use your movie example, you may value some movie for its high art and endearing message, while I may value some low budget flick for its campy humor and scrappiness. Still another might value one for the hilarious story of how terrible it was that they can now share with others... In short, I don't think value is an inherent, fixed, stable point that can be quantified like money. I think it's an abstract, dynamic, deeply fluid personal judgment. Anyway, my opinion for what it's worth (ie, however you decide to value it)...
I think where I landed on the concept of intrinsic value is that it exists, but we'll never know what it is. It's just too big of a question for any of us to understand. And in the frames of references that humans deal with, I think your description is basically correct: To each his/her own.
Nah. Don't give up so easily Maurer! See my comment above. Really.