I offer a line of argument that aims at the conclusion that the notion of radically different and incommensurable systems of value is incoherent, which would mean that the presumption of some significant common ground of valuation is rationally required in value inquiry

Richard W., Field

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Common ValuesRichard W. FieldPresented at The World in Perspective, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 25-26September 1998.The project of a theory of value as it was pursued by John Dewey and Lewis Hahn amongothers in Value: A Cooperative Inquiry1 has been largely abandoned in recent years in favor of atheory of valuational consistency.  The trends that I am pointing to here embrace such areas asgame theory, decision theory, and the logic of preference.  Little is said about what it means tovalue something, and how doing so relates to the claim that something "has value," but muchconcerning what a rational set of interests and aims is relative to a given, variable set of basalvaluations.  What results is a consideration of the formal conditions of consistent valuation, asopposed to a consideration of what constitutes valuation itself, its conditions and consequences;what in a stronger sense may be called rational valuation.There might be many reasons cited for this shift from constitutive to formal issues, but Ithink one main reason for the shift is a problem that has dogged questions of value for centuries--viz., without any clear ontological basis by which we can make the claim that values are in somesense "in the world," there appears to be no basis upon which to speak of "common values" in thefull-blooded sense at all,2 although we may save some scientific respectability for value inquiryby noting that people do have interests, goals, aims, etc., as a matter of psychological fact, andexploring the criteria of internal consistency within a given set of such valuings.  This isreinforced by views that partly stem from philosophical trends, and partly from themes in thegeneral culture.  Among the former is the view, especially popular in continental politicalthought, that accepted values are a function of certain historical and cultural interests, and sincehistory is (or was) a contingent matter (things might have gone differently), so are thesupervening values.  The well-known work of Michel Foucault developed along these lines.  Abroader, cultural attitude that contributes to the rejection of constitutive issues is the suspicionthat to assert the existence of common or universal values is inconsistent with a recognition ofand tolerance for the plurality of values inter- and intra-culturally.The upshot of these philosophical and cultural currents of thought is the view that tryingto find answers to questions concerning the conditions of valuation and the criteria of rationalvalues is a fruitless affair born of muddleheaded thinking all of which can be cleared up simplyby abandoning the project and taking constitutive values as either the cultural or psychologicalpreconditions of the application, but not the content, of cogent value inquiry, much as truepropositions constitute the precondition of the application of formal logical theory.3  I wish toargue here that the pessimism expressed in these views is, in fact, unwarranted--that not only dopeople accept many of the same values, but that they could hardly do otherwise, in which caseconstitutive questions of value are meaningful and important.I will pursue the issue by offering a line of argument that aims at the conclusion that thenotion of radically different and incommensurable systems of value is incoherent, which wouldmean that the presumption of some significant common ground of valuation is rationally requiredin value inquiry.There is little doubt that the notion of value is bound with the notion of intentional action. When we say that someone values something, we offer an account of a stable practical2commitment that is central to anticipatory predictions and retrospective explanations of thatperson's behavior.  If we are told that someone values intellectual discussion, we then can readilyexplain why it is that he or she in the past has organized discussion groups, attended conferenceson cerebral topics, sought out people who have interesting things to say, etc., and we will readilypredict that the person will continue to do these things in the future.Another sign of the close relationship between valuing and pragmatic intention, I think, isthat the strength of claims that various animals have interests beyond those that devolve tomatters of pure biology correlates with how sensible or natural it is to attribute intentional actionto these animals.  It seems quite natural to say that dogs like meaty bones, dogs being of a levelof behavioral sophistication such that it also seems quite natural to say that a dog digging in thedirt is trying to retrieve the bone she buried yesterday.  Similar claims make sense with respect tomost mammals generally.4  On the other hand, although phototropisms can be observed in verysimple organisms, it seems to make little sense to say that such organisms intend to pursue light,and just as little sense to say that they like light, or have an interest in light.Now, in view of this, what I wish to argue is that our understanding of intentional actionsis dependent on the attribution of interests and values to agents, such that if we have no way ofmaking such attributions, we likewise have no basis upon which to make the claim that a givenbehavior is intentional at all.  If this is so, then the attribution of wholly different interests to anagent whose actions we interpret to be intentional is incoherent, and some common core must bepresumed.It has been a staple of action theory of the past forty years or so that intentions can beunderstood in terms of beliefs and desires, or, more broadly, "pro-attitudes."  When we attribute3an intention to someone, we attribute a belief and desire to that person that conjointly areunderstood as causes or reasons of the action in question.  Thus if Mary drives to the store for aloaf of bread to have with her soup for dinner, the claim "Mary intends to buy a loaf of bread"can be understood as entailing the conjoint claims "Mary desires to buy a loaf of bread" and"Mary believes that bread can be purchased at the store."  Significant revision in one of theseclaims will require revision in the other as its ascription is relevant to explaining intention.  So ifMary, as she is pulling up to the store, tells us that in fact she has no desire for bread, her beliefthat bread can be purchased at the store, if she has it, can no longer explain her intention, and theascription of other beliefs relevant to other desires must be considered.  Likewise, if she tells usthat she had no idea that bread could be purchased at the store, her desire for bread, if she hassuch, is no longer relevant to explaining her intentions.Now in such instances, what determines which beliefs and desires provide the mostplausible interpretation of intentions?  The answer, it seems to me, is those beliefs and desiresthat are most reasonable from our own standpoint in light of the agent's overall behavior.  DonaldDavidson has argued that the interpretation of another's assertions requires a tradeoff betweenreasonable attributions of meanings and beliefs to a speaker, a tradeoff which starts with theassumption of a significant overlap of common beliefs.5  I suggest a similar commonality musthold with respect to standing motivations when interpreting the intentions of agents.  By"standing motivations" I mean stable interests and goals that regularly enter into our intentions asfelt desires. Consider again Mary's case.  If we know she was preparing soup for dinner, and see herleave the soup simmering, go to the store, and purchase a loaf of bread, the reasonable4interpretation based on the presumption of a general congruence of beliefs and desires would bethat she intends to eat bread with dinner.  Even if we wouldn't eat bread with our soup, othermore broadly defined desires, such as a varied diet for the purposes of nutrition, or the pleasuresof eating foods in a meal of complementary flavors and textures, can lead to an accurateexplanation.  If subsequent behavior falsifies the interpretation, the search can be renewed on thebasis of the presumption of general congruence.Now, the central question is this: What could we conclude without the presumption of ageneral congruence of desires and beliefs?  Since behavioral evidence underdeterminesinterpretations of intentions, nothing at all could be inferred--with no alternative heuristiccriterion, there is no basis for assessing the relative probabilities of the possible explanations, andthe possible explanations are endless.  Would it help if we were to presume overall congruenceof beliefs, but not desires?  This would of course rule out beliefs that we take as false.  But thebeliefs by which we interpret others' actions are in most cases standing beliefs which we attributeto agents as active beliefs.  The issue here is one of relevance: Which of our standing beliefs isrelevant to this action in this set of circumstances?  Our usual clue here is reasonable desire. Without the presumption of congruence, this is not available, and possible explanationsproliferate.  Considering Mary again, Mary might want an organic sponge, to which her beliefthat bread is organic and spongelike is relevant; or she might want a table ornament of a beigecolor (to complement a certain room's color scheme), to which her belief concerning the color ofbread is relevant; or she might want something that is roughly five inches square to plug up thefive-inch-square hole in her septic pipe, to which her belief concerning the dimensions of atypical loaf is relevant, and so on.5General congruence, of course, doesn't mean complete congruence--we recognize thatpeople have different motivations, both in terms of long-term, standing interests, and felt desiresin particular situations.  But it is in the context of shared interests that motivational variance isrecognized.  I might not have any wish to free-climb a mountain, because of the danger involved,but I do understand the desire for an exciting pastime that provides diversion from humdrumroutine, and with an imaginative adjustment of my fear threshold, the point of the free-climbingbecomes clear.The strategy of interpretation in this and other cases of motivational variance seems to goroughly something like this.  There are certain broad domains of motivation in which interestsand desires are arranged hierarchically, from quite general and long-range goals and interests toones that are more specifically defined and sought in more narrowly circumscribed contexts. Interests of lower generality are instances of the more general interests, which allows a route tobe traced from the particular to the general.  The interest in free-climbing is an instance of aninterest in pleasant vigorous activity, which is in turn an instance of an interest in diversionarypleasures, etc.  When someone's behavior is puzzling, we are able to interpret the behavior byfinding a common interest of higher generality, and then using contextual clues and imaginativepsychological adjustments to follow the path to more specific interests and desires.  A politicalleader who orders an attack on a neighboring country may be acting from ambition or self-protection, generally shared motivations that identify relevant behavioral and contextual tests ofour interpretations.  Evidence of the depletion of crucial natural resources in the leader's country,and abundant resources in the neighboring country, would suggest more particularly economic6ambition, and aggressive behavior in the past would provide evidence of dispositions which areconsistent with this interpretation.What this line of argument suggests, I think, is that the presumption that intentionalaction takes place within a broad motivational context that is interpersonally congruent in generalcharacter is not eliminable from the strategies of pragmatic interpretation.  Without thispresumption, interpretations of intention fail, and the best we can do is cite behavioralregularities that fall far short of an account of intention.But more than this, it is hard to understand without this presumption in place how wecould interpret an action as intentional at all.  Consider an example of perplexing behavior.  Apsychologist observes her patient backing a wheelchair into the corner of a room, while issuingnautical orders in a commanding voice: "2/3rds astern!" "Belay the breast rope smartly mister!"etc.  What is the psychologist to think?6  If the patient, in a more lucid moment when hisbehavior is appropriate to circumstances, tells her of his experience during the curious episode(e.g., "I thought I was docking the Queen Mary"), she has evidence of delusional belief and anavenue to align her standing motivations to the delusional context in a "what if" manner, much aswe would enter into a child's imaginary play.7  Interpretation in this case becomes possible. Without this avenue, however, there is no more reason to take the behavior as acting within adelusion than as an unconscious pantomime of intentional behavior, such as we commonlyunderstand sleepwalking.I'll offer two conclusions from these considerations.  First, there is a web of commonstanding motivations and beliefs that provide the basis of behavioral interpretation.  This webmay be more or less attenuated on the basis of variation in cultural and environmental7circumstances, but it cannot break altogether within the boundaries of recognizable intentionalagency.  Judgments of reasonable valuation are assessed within this motivational web.Secondly, a common motivational framework provides the basis upon which discrepantvaluations are coordinated and understood.  As we can understand the rock-climber's motivationby an imaginative shift in fear threshold, and Mary's interest in bread by placing ourselves withinher motivational context, so generally discrepancies in valuation can be reconciled by animaginative shift upward in a given motivational domain coupled with such adjustments inpsychology dispositions and practical context as is suggested on an empirical basis.  Suchstrategies are a staple of our sympathetic understanding of the whys and wherefores of others. This does not, of course, rule out the possibility of irreconcilable differences, but it does meanthat discordant valuations do have a common motivational ground.I have offered nothing here by way of suggesting what values are, or how valuationsshould be assessed.  But if, as I have argued, we must presume a common core of motivationamong all intentional agents, there is, no doubt, some considerable territory that can bephilosophically explored.  Any concern of radical incommensurability of values can be safely putaside since it is seriously entertained only on pain of incoherence, and further inquiry into thepsychological and contextual grounds of valuation, and the content of rational values, canproceed on an empirical basis.  In short, constitutive investigation concerning values andvaluation is an endeavor that was not well abandoned, and is well worth a second look.8     1 Ed. Ray Lepley (New York: Columbia University, 1949).     2 As Lewis Hahn noted in "A Contextualist Looks at Values" (Lepley, op. cit., 112-114)metaphysical views do seem to play a role in the stances that value theorists take to the status ofvalue.  If this is true, then the flight from metaphysics in twentieth century thought might offer anadditional explanation of the flight from constitutive issues in value inquiry.  A return to theseissues, I think, may well require taking a metaphysics of value seriously.  In this paper, however,I will try to initiate a return not by explaining what value is, but arguing the more fundamentalclaim that common values must be recognized.     3 The method is well represented in the following passage by James G. March and Herbert A.Simon: "When we first encounter the rational man of economics and statistical decision theory inthe decision-making situation he already has laid out before him the whole set of alternativesfrom which he will choose his action.  This set of alternatives is simply 'given'; the theory doesnot tell how it is obtained . . ." [Organizations (New York: Wiley, 1958), p. 137.     4 It might be thought that the key to this correlation is not intentional action, butconsciousness.  Animals that are conscious, to the degree they are conscious, can be said to haveinterests or to value things.  But an animal that has quite acute conscious sensations of pain,warmth, light, etc., and yet lacks any interests seems perfectly conceivable.  I suspect that theattribution of intentional action does presume consciousness, but the attribution of levels ofconsciousness do not appear to imply the presence of interests.ENDNOTES9     5 See "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme," in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 195-97.     6 This example was suggested to me some years ago by Matthew Kelly, although he drewsomewhat different conclusions from it.     7 Cf. an episode reported by Oliver Sacks, where a peculiar form of behavior was explained byone of his patients: "As I was writing notes at my desk, I perceived through the open doorSeymour L. careering down the corridor; he had been walking pretty normally, and then,suddenly, accelerated, festinant, precipitated. . . .  He recovered, however, and was able toproceed without further incident to the nursing station near my desk.  He was obviously in a rage,and a panic, and bewildered: 'Why the hell do they leave the passage like that? . . .  It's got abloody great hole in it. . . .'  'Mr. L.,' the nurse replied.  'You're not making sense.  I assure youthe passage is perfectly normal.'  At this point I got up . . . and suggested to Mr. L. and the nursethat we walk back together, to find out about the 'excavation'.  Seymour walked between us,unconsciously attuning his pace to ours, and we walked the length of the passage togetherwithout any incident--and without any hint of festination or precipitation.  This absence ofincident left Seymour confounded.  'I'll be damned,' he said.  'You're perfectly right. . . .  But'--heturned to me, and spoke with an emphasis and a conviction I have never forgotten--'I could havesworn it suddenly dipped, just as I said.  It was because it dipped that I was forced into a run. You'd do the same if you felt the ground falling away, in a steep slope under your feet!  I ran asanyone would run, with such a feeling.  What you call ‘festination’ is no more than a normalreaction to an abnormal perception.'" [Awakenings (New York: Dutton, 1983), pp. 298f.]10

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