Abstract
Focusing on Dewey’s late text “Theory of Valuation” Hämäläinen offers Dewey’s work as an entrance point to a descriptive moral philosophy. Dewey shares with the mainstream of present-day analytic philosophy the emphasis on a search for rational grounds for (moral) conduct. But the grounds he seeks are nothing we think up in an armchair. His hopes go rather to the developing social sciences and psychology, which supposedly will provide us with a richer understanding of human practices. Dewey’s theory of valuation has lately been picked up by social scientists who study the ascription and application of value in various contemporary social practices. The research done on this field of “valuation studies” provides at its best a kind of empirical philosophy of values and offers, in any case, a broad range of insights into sites where evaluative decisions are taken and evaluative standards are consolidated.
Keywords
John Dewey Valuation Valuation studiesLiterature
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