Value judgment

A value judgment is a judgment of the rightness or wrongness of something or someone, or of the usefulness of something or someone, based on a comparison or other relativity.

Quotes

• For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.
  • Albert Einstein, in Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York (1941)

• The philosopher … subjects experience to his critical judgment, and this contains a value judgment—namely, that freedom from toil is preferable to toil, and an intelligent life is preferable to a stupid life. It so happened that philosophy was born with these values. Scientific thought had to break this union of value judgment and analysis, for it became increasingly clear that the philosophic values did not guide the organisation of society.
  • Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (1964), p. 126.

• One cannot, however, avoid saying a few words about individuals who lay down the law to art in the name of art history. Art criticism today is beset by art historians turned inside out to function as prophets of so-called inevitable trends. A determinism similar to that projected into the evolution of past styles is clamped upon art in the making. In this parody of art history, value judgments are deduced from a presumed logic of development, and an ultimatum is issued to artists either to accommodate themselves to these values or be banned from the art of the future.
  • Harold Rosenberg Art on the Edge, (1975) p. 147, "Criticism and Its Premises"

• The capacity to distinguish between empirical knowledge and value-judgments, and the fulfillment of the scientific duty to see the factual truth as well as the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals constitute the program to which we wish to adhere with ever increasing firmness.
  • Max Weber, Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy (1904)

• Only on the assumption of belief in the validity of values is the attempt to espouse value-judgments meaningful. However, to judge the validity of such values is a matter of faith.
  • Max Weber (1949/2011), Methodology of Social Sciences, Edward E. Shils & Henry A. Finch (transl. & ed.). p. 55

See also

• Judgment
• Knowledge
• Value