Nicholas Rescher on Objective Values

(Note: The following post was originally written on October 19, 2011, but was never quite finished. I am publishing it now "as is." I am clearing out my backlog of draft blog posts but I am officially on a hiatus from blogging. What this means is that while you are free to comment on this post, readers should not expect engagement from me anytime soon.)

I have always been uncomfortable with Craig's references to "values" in his defense of his moral argument for theism. What does Craig mean by "values"? I found a passage in Nicholas Rescher's INTRODUCTION TO VALUE THEORY that I found very helpful and worth posting. In the following excerpt, Rescher discusses the issue of whether values are in any sense objective:

One of the central tasks of such a theory of evaluation in general is to make a critical examination of the generic features of the mechanisms for applying the concept of value. Here two questions above all have been at the forefront of discussion: (1) Is value a property of objects (like color) or is it a relationship (like ownership) that arises out of circumstances linking the value object with the valuing subject in some special way, in which case the further question of objectivity vs. subjectivity arises: is valuation personal and relative; does value reside strictly "in the mind of the beholder," or does it have an objective grounding? (2) Is the value of an object something to be apprehended only in subjective experience (like the taste of a food or a drink) intuitively--or is its attribution to be based on impersonally specifiable criteria whose satisfaction can be determined by some objective examination akin to the scientific investigation of things?

An enormous literature has sprung up around these metatheoretical questions regarding valuation. We cannot here pursue the matter at the length required for an adequate discussion. In consequence, we shall content ourselves with formulating our own position in a brief and dogmatic way. As we see it, a paradigm model of evaluation can be found in the work of the land appraiser. The assessed value at issue (that of land) is relational: it is not a property inherent in the land itself (like the rockiness of its soil) but arises out of its relationship to people in its environment and has to do with various attitudes that people have toward the features exhibited by this valued item. Evaluation is this generally "principled," i.e., based on criteria that take account of objective features of the items (real or assumed) that are being evaluated. Value has, therefore, an objective basis and can be assessed, by impersonal standards or criteria that can be taught to an evaluator through training. Value--in this conception--is relational (in viewing the value of an object as something that arises from the nature of its interactions with people, or perhaps intelligent beings generally) but objective (since evaluation is, in general, based on objectively establishable and interpersonally operative standards).
The controversy about the objectivity of value comes down to this: Is something valuable because it is valued (and so, solely, because it is regarded by people in a certain way), or is something valued--properly and correctly valued--when it is valuable, that is, when it is objectively possessed of certain value-endowing features? The question can be put in another way by asking what type of valuing situation is to be taken as typical. Is the paradigm evaluation that of a postage stamp, whose sole value resides in the fact that men wish to own it? Or is the paradigm evaluation that of an apple whose value, quite apart from the fact of its being desired, resides in its possession of those characteristics that make for its being nourishing, palatable, hunger-appeasing, etc.? (Note that it is only in this second case--when having value requires the possession of certain features--that one can speak of something that is valued as being rightly or correctly valued.)

Put in these terms the question (it would seem) virtually answers itself. Both types of value situations arise. There are postage stamp cases, where values derive from being subjectively valued, and apple cases, where value inheres objectively in value-endowing features. There are mere valuings of the de gustibus non est disputandum kind that lie beyond direct criticism, and there are well-founded valuings that can be correct or incorrect on the basis of an objective foundation. An adequate theory of value has to be prepared to take both types of valuing into account.
-- Nicholas Rescher, Introduction to Value Theory (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1982), pp. 55-56.

What stands out to me after reading Rescher's explanation is just how irrelevant the existence of God is to all of this. If values are objective, that is not because God does or does not exist. If values are subjective, that is not because God does or does not exist. Either way the existence or nonexistence of God is irrelevant to the objectivity of value.