Value Judgments, Descriptions of Facts, Objectivity, and Subjectivity

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume XI, p. 44 of the PDF edition · English translation

4.1. The idea that value judgments are subjective

We saw in Chapter 1 that value judgments are any judgments of the good/bad, better/worse type. Such judgments are different from judgments concerning reasons to act in one way or another. Judgments about reasons for action include, for example, judgments about the best means to achieve an end (something discussed in theories of rational decision) and about which ends are justifiable (something discussed in the field of normative ethics). Value judgments are discussed in the field known as value theory.

Of course, the main function of a value judgment is usually to guide practice, since if we conclude that something is good or better, this seems to give us a reason to pursue it (and, likewise, if we conclude that it is bad or worse, this seems to give us a reason to avoid it). Nevertheless, these are different domains of thought (even though they interact with each other). That being so, it is important to note that everything that will be said in this chapter concerns value judgments only (the connection between what we have seen so far, and what we will see in the present chapter, and judgments about reasons for action will be addressed from the next chapter onward).

A very common idea is that “facts are objective, values are subjective.” Usually, what is meant by this is that it is possible to establish whether a description of facts is true or false, whereas no such thing is possible for value judgments. But is this idea plausible? That is what we will discuss next.

4.2. Two senses of the term “subjective”

Suppose we asked someone: “Why do you believe that facts are objective and values are subjective?” One possible answer would be to say that facts, by their very nature, are objective because they are located in the external world, the physical world, whereas values, by their very nature, are subjective because they are mental states.

If that is the answer, then the term “subjective” is being used, without anyone noticing, in two distinct senses. It is being used both to refer to “mental states” and to refer to “that which cannot be established as true or false.” However, if something is subjective in the first sense, it will not necessarily be so in the second. We can see this even in the case of descriptions of facts, since they describe not only phenomena in the external world but also mental events. For example, if I ask “Is João feeling pain?”, there is a correct answer to this question: it is “yes” if João really is feeling pain, and “no” if he is not. This alone shows that we cannot infer, from the fact that a question concerns a mental event, that there is necessarily no correct answer to it.

Thus, it is false both that descriptions of facts are limited to describing events in the external world (since they may involve describing mental events) and that, because a statement concerns a mental event, there is no way to assess it as true or false.

4.3. The activities of describing and evaluating

It might be objected that, in the example above, there is a correct answer to the question precisely because the answer involves describing mental states, not evaluating them. According to this objection, whether or not a question has a correct answer has nothing to do with whether it concerns a physical or a mental event, but rather with whether it involves the activity of describing or of evaluating.

On this objection's view, descriptions of facts (whether of external events or of mental events) can be assessed as true or false. Value judgments (that is, judgments about what is good/bad, better/worse), by contrast, cannot be assessed as true or false.

4.4. How can a value judgment be confirmed?

In the face of the objection above, we must ask again: “Why is it assumed that value judgments have no correct answer?” To this it might be replied that, in the case of descriptions, there is an event in the world (external or mental) that we can use to confirm whether or not the description is true. In the case of value judgments, by contrast, there is nothing of the sort.

In response, however, it could be argued that the objectivity of value judgments works in a different way: confirming that a value judgment is right or wrong does not come from checking whether there are certain facts in the world that correspond to the judgment, but (at least in some cases) from direct experience of what is being assessed as good or bad, better or worse. We will see more about this below.

Let us take an example with the most evident case of all, the case of suffering. By suffering, we mean here any and every negative experience, from the simplest to the most complex, from the mildest to the most excruciating, whether it arises from a physical or a psychological stimulus. Imagine someone says: “suffering is intrinsically negative.” This is clearly a value judgment. In making this judgment, we are not merely describing that whoever suffers is harmed by suffering. Rather, we are evaluating suffering negatively.

What is meant by intrinsically negative is that suffering is negative in itself: it is already bad on its own and does not need to lead to something else that is bad in order to be bad. This judgment also implies holding that suffering, when it has value, can only have instrumental value, that is, when it leads to something good or prevents something bad. This happens, for example, when the pain we feel on touching a fire makes us pull away, and this prevents us from being burned even more, or prevents us from dying. In that case, the suffering had instrumental value. For this very reason, the case of masochists does not show that suffering is not negative in itself: in fact, such a case confirms that suffering can only have instrumental value (since, in the case of these people, the suffering leads to pleasure).

So what really proves that suffering is intrinsically negative? It is the impossibility of experiencing it in any other way than as something negative. Everyone who experiences suffering experiences it as negative. If it is not negative, it is not suffering. What more could be done to establish the value judgment “suffering is intrinsically negative”? Since everyone who experiences suffering experiences it as negative in itself, and since it is impossible to experience it as something positive in itself, this value judgment is necessarily correct. If someone says that suffering is not intrinsically negative, their value judgment is incorrect, since suffering is negative in itself.

Everything said so far about the disvalue of negative experiences can be said, analogously, about the value of positive experiences. That is, everyone who experiences pleasure or happiness experiences these things as positive in themselves. Again, positive experiences can only be negative instrumentally. That is, they can only be negative if they lead to negative things or prevent positive things. This happens, for example, when, because some food is very tasty, we overeat and get sick afterward (and then we will suffer) or die (and then we will be prevented from enjoying positive states).

4.5. The example of aliens who have so far had only neutral experiences

We have direct access to suffering and pleasure. That is why we know which of them is negative in itself and which is positive in itself. This is so obvious to us that it does not even cross our minds that such direct experience is a proof regarding value judgments. If we did not have such experiences, all we could ask for by way of proof regarding value judgments would be to be able to have them. Below is an example to illustrate this point.

Suppose there were an alien species whose members were sentient, but in whose world there was nothing that caused them suffering or pleasure. Because of this, these aliens' experiences so far have all been neutral: neither positive nor negative. Keep in mind, however, that they are capable of negative and positive experiences: it is just that they have never encountered anything that caused them such experiences. Of course, because of natural selection and the survival value of positive and negative experiences, such a species probably does not exist in the real universe. Remember, though, that this is merely a thought experiment meant to support the claim that the objectivity of value judgments comes about through direct experience.

Now imagine that these aliens have heard that on Earth sentient beings experience suffering and pleasure. But because these aliens have never had these experiences, they have no idea what they are like. They have heard that Earthlings say that one of them is negative (suffering) and the other is positive (pleasure). But the aliens in question do not know what this means because, having never experienced anything positive or negative, they have not formed the concept of value. What could we do to prove to these aliens that it is suffering that is negative and pleasure that is positive (and not the other way around), and to explain what is meant by the concepts of negative and positive? Why, make them experience each of these things. That is why experiencing suffering as negative and pleasure as positive is the proof that suffering is negative and that pleasure is positive.

4.6. Things that cannot be explained except in terms of their value/disvalue

A further proof is that, unlike other things, it is not possible to explain what suffering and pleasure are without citing, as their main features, that they are, respectively, negative and positive. Compare this with other things. For example, some people argue that species or ecosystems have value in themselves. The reason it makes sense to maintain that such a claim is debatable (though not necessarily false) is that we can explain completely what a species or an ecosystem is without having to mention that they are “positive in themselves.” This, as we have seen, is not the case with the claim that suffering is negative in itself and with the claim that pleasure is positive in itself.

4.7. The confusion between the domains of value and ethics

It might be objected that, if pleasure is good in itself, then the pleasure a torturer feels in torturing his victims is good in itself. But, the objection would continue, it is absurd to say that this is good, since it is a very wrong action.

On this point, it is important to note that nothing said above concerns what the right action is (but rather how individuals are affected positively or negatively). We can, without contradiction, hold that pleasure is always intrinsically positive and also hold that a torturer's action is unjustifiable. The main reason for condemning such an action is precisely the harm caused to the victim (which we can recognize only if we recognize that suffering is negative in itself). Thus, when we say that suffering is bad in itself and that pleasure is good in itself, all this implies with regard to the case of torture is that we must recognize that the torturer was benefited by the pleasure he felt and that the victim was harmed by the suffering she felt. None of this implies approving of the torturer's action. In fact, it gives us excellent reasons to condemn such an action strongly, since the victim is harmed more if the torture is carried out than the torturer is harmed if the torture is not carried out.

4.8. Comparing the degree of certainty for value judgments and descriptions of facts

Sometimes the degree of certainty we can have in value judgments is greater than in many questions that involve describing facts. For example, the question “How many planets are there in the universe?” concerns describing facts, but it is very difficult to be certain of its answer. “Does the external world really exist, or is it a virtual simulation?” is another example. Now let us compare this with the value judgment “suffering is negative in itself.” In this case, since we are directly experiencing the object of our judgment, and our judgment concerns that very experience (and not objects in the external world), there is no way we can be mistaken in our judgment.

It is impossible for suffering to be a positive experience while we are all mistaken in experiencing it as negative: it is negative precisely because we experience it as negative (being experienced as negative is what makes something suffering). The same holds for the judgment that pleasure is positive.

Thus, if there is at least one thing that objectively has disvalue in itself (negative experiences) and one thing that objectively has value in itself (positive experiences), the thesis that “value judgments cannot be established as true or false” is completely mistaken.

In fact, everyone who knows (that is, has already experienced) suffering and happiness knows how easy this is to understand. That being so, it is strange, to say the least, how widespread the idea is that value judgments cannot be established as true or false.

4.9. The confusion between all and some

Another possibility for what may be meant by “value judgments are not true or false” is that “not all value judgments can be established as true or false.” But that is a different question (and, even with respect to that other question, it is not obvious that the claim is correct). When someone asserts that “value judgments cannot be established as true or false,” it is understood that they are speaking of any and every value judgment. And, to show that this thesis is false, it is enough to show a single case of a value judgment that can be established as true or false (which is what we did with the case of negative and positive experiences).

4.10. Conclusion

If there is at least one intrinsically negative thing (suffering) and/or at least one intrinsically positive thing (pleasure), and it is impossible for us to be mistaken about this verdict, then the claim that no value judgment can be assessed objectively is false.

Important: as we have seen, what we have discussed here concerns the objectivity of value judgments (that is, about good/bad, better/worse), and not of judgments about what we ought to do. For example, someone can, without contradiction, recognize that suffering is negative in itself and at the same time hold that they have no reasons to avoid suffering. However, although this is not contradictory in logical terms, that does not mean it is a plausible position. For example, if the main function of value judgments is to guide practice, then if something is negative, this is already a reason (conclusive or not, depending on the reasons on the other side) for us to try to avoid it. This relationship between value judgments and judgments about the right action will begin to be explored in the next chapter.