The conclusion is not that value is subjective, but that it is
practical. The situation in which judgment of value is required is not
mental, much less fanciful. I can but think that much of the recent
discussion of the objectivity of value and of value-judgments rests
upon a false psychological theory. It rests upon giving certain terms
meanings that flow from an introspective psychology which accepts a
realm of purely private states of consciousness, private not in a
social sense (a sense implying courtesy or mayhap secrecy toward
others), but existential independence and separateness. To refer value
to choice or desire, for example, is in that case to say that value is
subjectively conditioned. Quite otherwise, if we have steered clear
from such a psychology. Choice, decision, means primarily a certain
act, a piece of behavior on the part of a particular thing. That a
horse chooses to eat hay means only that it eats hay; that the man
chooses to steal means (at least) that he tries to steal. This trial
may come, however, _after_ an intervening act of reflection. It then
has a certain intellectual or cognitive quality. But it may mean
simply the bare fact of an action which is retrospectively called a
choice: as a man, in spite of all temptation to belong to another
nation, chooses to be born an Englishman, which, if it has any sense
at all, signifies a choice to continue in a line adopted without
choice. Taken in this latter sense (in which case, terms like choice
and desire refer to ways of behavior), their use is only a
specification of the general doctrine that all valuation has to do
with the determination of a course of action. Choice, preference, is
originally only a bias in a given direction, a bias which is no more
subjective or psychical than is the fact that a ball thrown is
swerving in a particular direction rather than in some other curve. It
is just a name for the differential character of the action. But let
continuance in a certain line of action become questionable, let, that
is to say, it be regarded as a means to a future consequence, which
consequence has alternatives, and then choice gets a logical or
intellectual sense; a _mental_ status if the term "mental" is reserved
for acts having this intellectualized quality. Choice still means the
fixing of a course of action; it means at least a _set_ to be released
as soon as physically possible. Otherwise man has not chosen, but has
quieted himself into a belief that he has chosen in order to relieve
himself of the strain of suspense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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