Abstract
The concept of “value” is widely used in various fields, and it has recently become the subject of empirical research. However, there is no common understanding of what it is. From the very start, the scope of value has been part of the opposition of what “is” to what “ought to be,” and the fact that value judgments contained a normative element seemed to make the exclusion of value from the area of scientific analysis inevitable. John Dewey offers a different way of reasoning about values, which would allow scientists to keep the normativity in a way of saving the specificity of the concept. In order to do this, Dewey links the source of value with the evaluation process and introduces the concept of the “desirable” drawing the line between the “desirable” and the “desired”. Clyde Kluckhohn later borrowed this concept from Dewey, while formulating the concept of values within Parsons’ theory of action. Thanks to him, the “desirable” has become a favorite part of value definition among different researchers. As a result of this development, the concept of “desirability” has been transformed: for example, in social psychology, the “desirable” has moved closer to the “important”, and the significance of the normative aspect has diminished, evolving to a more descriptive understanding, while the social dimension, though present already in Dewey, has greatly increased.
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Notes
- 1.
One of the most famous attempts was made by John Searle; see (Searle 1964).
- 2.
A close connection between value and norm can also be proved by their inclusion in one and the same encyclopedia article: (Marini 2000, pp. 2828–2840). The correlation of the evaluative and normative is a separate topic; although both have the meaning of should, they are of dramatically different characters (e.g. see: Marini 2000, 2829–2830; Habermas 1992).
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Including social conditions (Dewey 1972, 32).
- 6.
Meaning the ten purposes realized in the ten types of values which serve to handle “three universal requirements of human existence”, namely, “needs of individuals as biological organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and welfare needs of groups” (Schwartz 2012, 4).
- 7.
See the categories of hedonism and power (Schwartz 2012, 56–60): here we can hardly imagine a conflict between the desired and the desirable in the form of “I do not want to, but I will”.
- 8.
Or vice versa: “I ought not to do X” can be interpreted as “I probably want X. But if I do X, Y will happen, and I do not want Y”.
- 9.
One can say, “this position is highly desirable” (i.e. “Everyone wants this position”), and “it is desirable to distinguish between these concepts” (i.e. “one needs/ought to/should distinguish between these concepts”).
- 10.
E.g. the dictionary definition of desirable refers to worth, while the latter is defined through value (see e.g. Oxford English Dictionary).
- 11.
“At any given time an adult person in a social group has certain ends which are so standardized by custom that they are taken for granted without examination, so that the only problems arising concern the best means for attaining them” (Dewey 1972, 43).
- 12.
“By institutionalization value is part of the situation” (Kluckhohn 1962, 410).
- 13.
Actually, John Searle’s criticism of the fact-value opposition is also based upon the existence of social institutions.
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Kostrova, E. (2018). The “Ought”-Dimension in Value Theory: The Concept of the Desirable in John Dewey’s Definition of Value and Its Significance for the Social Sciences. In: Christian, A., Hommen, D., Retzlaff, N., Schurz, G. (eds) Philosophy of Science. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72577-2_10
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