Value Theory (Axiology)

Abstract

This chapter deals with an area of study sometimes called “formal value theory” or “formal axiology”. Roughly characterized, this area investigates the structural and logical properties of value properties and value relations, such as goodness, badness, and betterness. There is a long-standing controversy about whether goodness and badness can, in principle, be measured on a cardinal scale, in a way similar to the measurement of well-understood quantitative concepts like length. Sect. 28.1 investigates this issue, mainly by comparing the properties of the relations “longer than” and “better than”. In Sect. 28.2, some attempts to define goodness and badness in terms of the betterness relation are discussed, and a novel suggestion is made. Sect. 28.3, finally, contains an attempt to define the recently much discussed value relation “on a par with” in terms of the more familiar betterness relation.