Herein, then, lies the difference between judgments of fact and
judgments of value. The mineralogist can train his pupil to see
precisely what he himself sees; and so likewise in any case of
sense-perception, the object, however recondite may be the qualities or
features which one may see in it, _can_ nevertheless be seen by any
other person in precisely the same way on the single, more often not
insuperably difficult, condition that the discoverer shall point these
out or otherwise prepare the other for seeing them. But with the ton of
coal which one may judge economically disposable for a charitable
purpose the case stands differently, since it is not in its visible or
other physical aspects that the ton of coal is here the subject of the
judgment. It is as having been set apart _by oneself exclusively_ for
other uses that the ton of coal now functions as an object and now
possesses the character which the economic judgment has given it; and
the case stands similarly with a contemplated act, of telling the truth
in a trying situation. The valuation placed upon the commodity or upon
the moral act depends essentially upon psychological conditions of
temperament, disposition, mood, or whim into which it would be
impossible for another person to enter, and these depend upon conditions
of past training and native endowment which can never occur or be
combined in future in precisely the same way for any other individual.
In short, the physical object is _describable_ and _can_ be made
socially current, though doubtless with more or less of difficulty, if
other persons will attend to it and learn to see it as I see it; but the
value of an economic object or a moral act depends upon my desires and
feelings, and therefore must remain a matter of my private appreciation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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