9 The Fact-Value Distinction, Core Values, and Ethics

I. THE FACT-VALUE DISTINCTION

In the Euthyphro, Socrates talks about those things that can be settled by measurement of some sort vs. those things even the gods fight over. This tracks what many now call the fact-value distinction. Like lots of distinctions, not everything falls neatly into one or other of the categories (fact or value), but enough things do that it’s a helpful distinction to make and to get used to using. If we can get clear on a lot of obvious cases where the distinction works, then we can better see the grey areas where it doesn’t.

In fact, a lot of the work of critical thinking and seeking knowledge is like this: We figure out what we do clearly understand in order to better pinpoint those things we don’t. Then we know where we need to put in some effort to better figure things out.

II. VALUES

Let’s start with values. Values are what determine our views about what is good and bad, right and wrong, and what should or shouldn’t be done. Our values thus determine how we think the world ought to be (even if it often isn’t that way).

Values are, to put it another way, normative for us. And they are unavoidable. We live our lives based on what we value; we judge other people and our institutions based on our values; and we judge ourselves based on whether we live up to our values.  There’s no human life that isn’t enmeshed in values.

There are different kinds of value: ethical or moral values reflect our basic views about how we ought to live and act (more about these below); aesthetic values reflect our views about what is beautiful and ugly, artistically pleasing or displeasing (for instance, the music you like to listen to, the movies you like to watch, the fashion you prefer, etc.); other values shape what we think is good and bad about everything from sports teams to food to personal hygiene.

Some values may reflect our individual opinions. If I say pizza is good or it would be awesome if the Cubs never make it to another World Series, those express my opinions about things I value, but not in a particularly deep or life-defining way. I can recognize that other people value those same things differently than I do and not lose any sleep over it. If you dislike pizza or want to root for the Cubs, so be it.

Other values are not particularly fundamental, but they are still socially agreed upon, and not a matter of individual opinion. What counts as politeness or good manners are like this. The fact that you should dress nicely for a job interview, or chew with your mouth closed when you’re eating with others, or not stay parked at a meter longer than the time allowed, don’t really reflect deep ethical values (although they are about respecting others, so there is some ethical element to them). They are social norms about what good behavior looks like, but nobody really suffers if you violate them.

On the other hand, if I say that murder is wrong, or that it is good to help those who are in need, I am expressing ethical values that are nearly universal. It’s not just that we happen to agree that murder is bad behavior, or that charity is a virtue. They reflect some sort of ethical truth that is rooted in something other than mere agreement or opinion. It’s a deep philosophical question as to what this sort of ethical truth really is and how we know it. You can take more philosophy classes to explore that question. Here the point is just for you to see that there are differences among the kinds of values we hold. This leads to the following:

CRUCIAL POINT: Values are not (at least much of the time) a matter of mere opinion. You have probably been taught a fact-opinion distinction at some point, but that is not the distinction we are making here. 

Most of us also hold values that we believe ought to be universally shared, even if in fact they aren’t. These define our ethical outlook — our view about how people, including but not only us, ought to live and act.

And it’s for this reason, as Socrates recognized, that differences over values often lead to conflict. If we didn’t think our values correct and someone else’s incorrect, we would just always live and let live. But sometimes we can’t do this. And so we argue and fight and sometimes  end up in violent conflict with one another as a result.

Typically such conflicts arise when there is an issue about what we will call core values. We’ll use this term to refer to those things which are taken to be of fundamental value to a person or group of people, which typically permeate and shape their entire lives, and which define who they are.

Some examples:

• One of the core values that Americans have taken to be central since the country was founded is individual liberty. People have argued about what exactly this is, how to achieve it, who should have it, etc. But even amidst such ambiguity and disagreement, the idea that individual liberty is central to America has remained for many a guiding principle. As such, it provides a standard by which laws, policies, actions, and politicians are judged: do they promote or inhibit individual liberty?
• In many societies, social stability has been taken to be among the highest values. This has led in many cases to systems of law and social hierarchies that are quite restrictive. In such societies, individual liberty may be perceived as of comparatively little value.
• For many religious believers, love of and obedience to God defines what is of the highest value. To live according to this value means endeavoring to regulate one’s life according to the demands of one’s faith. This value is supposed to trump other values, for instance, those associated with wealth and power.
• For scientists, truth and knowledge are regarded as of utmost value, and the practices and institutions of science are designed to promote the value of truth and knowledge in the face of all the obstacles we face in achieving them. Individual scientists are supposed to look for reasoned evidence for any claims they make, and to be open to revising their views when new evidence or theoretical advances require they do so.
• For many artists, beauty has been taken to be a core value. What beauty is, how to create or represent it in a particular medium, etc., have defined a great deal of artistic effort. (Modern art often does not take beauty to be a core value. As I recently heard one artist put it, “there are already enough pretty pictures in the world.” So, such artists must be driven by some core value other than beauty.)

The list could go on: fairness, power, kindness, charity, wealth, honor, familial connection, ecological stability, etc. —  lots of things figure as core values for people. Sometimes they (we!) have multiple core values, and sometimes even multiple incompatible ones.

Whichever ones we have, they will shape our lives in various ways. So, for instance, if you think that a core value is kindness, and that throughout your life, you should strive to be kind to others, then there are going to be lots of more particular values you’ll also hold. You’ll think it’s good to compliment people, to smile and be friendly, to give them help when they need it, etc. If you think that beauty is of the highest value, you may be willing to earn less money by pursuing art than you could in a different career. Or, if you think wealth or power is what’s most important, you may act immorally in pursuit of them and believe you are justified in doing so.

How do you identify core values? Maybe the easiest way is to pretend you are a four-year old who’s at the stage where they keep asking “why?” to everything. If someone says, “you should recycle your plastic water bottle” or “I’m buying a car,” or whatever, you can start asking “why?” or “so what?” and keep asking it until there’s no further answer that can be given. For example:

• You should recycle your plastic water bottle.
• Why?
• Because it’s better to recycle than just to throw things away.
• Why?
• Because it takes energy and resources to produce things, and we shouldn’t use more than we need.
• Why?
• Because resources are limited and we need to make sure they don’t run out.
• Why?
• Because human life depends on these resources to survive.
• So what?
• Well, we need to make sure humans can continue to survive.
• Why?

At this point, there’s not much more to say. Being more conservation-minded is grounded in the value of sustaining human life, and there’s not really an argument for that value that most who hold it would be able to give. Not that you couldn’t keep pressing the issue (Socrates surely would), but for most who hold human life to be of value, it’s just self-evident. They don’t really have reasons for holding it. For those that do, it’s that core value that drives their concern about recycling and similar things. Of course, one discarded water bottle isn’t going to end all life on the planet. But the totality of our wasteful actions has an immensely negative impact on our continued ability to survive, or at least to thrive. So, someone who has as a core value our ability to live well will look at each action we take through the lens of that value, even seemingly insignificant actions.

Note that this conversation could have taken a different direction and ended in a different core value:

• You should recycle your plastic water bottle.
• Why?
• Because a lot of plastic we throw away ends up as litter or even washed into the ocean.
• So what?
• As plastic breaks down, it can harm other species.
• So what?
• Well, we shouldn’t cause harm to other species if we can avoid it.
• Why?

Here we’ve arrived at the idea that the lives of other species are of value, not just our own. If you hold that value, you will be concerned about a lot of the same things that those who only value human life are concerned with. But, as with valuing human life, for most who are really driven by the value of the lives of other species, that value is basic, it’s not something they will necessarily be able to give further reasons for.

Here’s the other example from above:

• I’m buying a car.
• Why?
• I can’t get to work unless I can drive.
• So what?
• I need to be able to get to work.
• Why?
• Because I need the money the job provides.
• Why?
• Because without it I can’t afford college.
• So what?
• If I don’t go to college, I won’t be able to have a career in the health sciences.
• So what?
• It’s important for me to be able to work in a field that helps others.
• Why?
• Because helping others is one of the most important things we can do.
• Why?

Again, at this point answers run out. For most people who think helping others is important, it’s a basic value that steers them, but one for which they probably can’t give reasons for.

If you think these examples stop too soon, try to push them a little further. See where reasons run out — or where they would realistically run out for most people whose values we are trying to understand. If you’re clever enough, you can probably keep them going past that point, but the main idea here is that, for most of us most of the time, we have values that guide us that are basic, that we don’t or can’t justify by appeal to anything else.

III. FACTS

There are facts about the past, facts about the present, and facts about the future (though this gets a little tricky, as we will see); there are facts about particular things, about classes or categories of things, and facts about all that is; there are facts about the natural world and human society;  and there are facts about fictional beings, numbers and other mathematical objects, and (perhaps) supernatural beings, none of which are part of the empirical world in any straightforward way.

Many facts may be unknowable, many can only be known with some degree of probability rather than certainty, but, still, they remain facts. Science aims to know facts, but so do we in lots of areas of our lives where science doesn’t reach. Faith makes claims about fact, but typically thinks those claims cannot be established by ordinary empirical or scientific means.

IV. ETHICS

“Ethics” refers to this domain of values and what we believe about it — our general and specific beliefs about how we ought to live and act and treat one another. We all have an “ethic” we live by, even if we don’t spend much time thinking about it or trying to articulate or defend it. So, we can speak interchangeably about our ethics and our ethical outlook.

Now, notice that in this chapter we’ve been talking about ethics without making specific claims about what we ought to do or how we ought to live. Instead, we’ve making a number of distinctions and defining a bunch of terms that are involved in describing ethics (and other evaluative activity). This is what philosophical ethics does: it involves taking a step back from our lives in order to reflect on what ethical evaluation involves, in order to understand it better. The goal is to help us avoid unethical action that results from confusion (e.g., confusing values with facts). It may or may not lead to claims about what we concretely ought to do or how we should live.

Applied ethics — what’s mentioned in the title of the course — is then the activity of drawing on philosophical ethics in order to help better understand the concrete sorts of ethical situations that define our actual lives.

In this course, we’re going to stay pretty close to the ground-level of ordinary life in terms of our theorizing about ethics. Philosophers over the millennia have worked out very detailed systematic articulations of different ethical outlooks that are articulated at a much more general level. While it can be deeply illuminating to study these philosophically articulated ethical theories, I don’t believe they are that helpful for a first — and perhaps only — course in philosophy. Some of you will catch the philosophy bug and want to do more of it after taking this class. But most of you will remain engaged in pursuing majors and careers which don’t leave you a lot of time for philosophical reflection.

You might be surprised how relevant this work is, however. Not only does nearly every profession have a professional code of ethics which is grounded in some sort of philosophical reflection, you can actually find employment as a philosopher because people understand philosophy’s relevance to ethical decision making. A case in point: one of our recent IUSB philosophy majors just got a job with Beacon Health, where he will be doing analysis of procedures and processes with the goal of helping improve them. Most healthcare systems employ ethicists who were trained in philosophy programs, or have ethical advisory boards that include philosophers.

So, what follows is aimed to give you some tools that will help you think about your own ethical lives, both individually and within your professions, and to encourage you to question and reflect within them, even if you never study more philosophy. If you do want to study more advanced ethical theory, however, we have classes that will help you do that, and I’m happy to help direct you towards them!

Wrapping things up for this chapter, then: one of the concrete goals in this course is to start thinking about how to identify our core values and see just how much they shape our lives and affect how we engage in our day-to-day reasoning. We can hardly begin to understand ourselves or each other without recognizing the different core values that structure our lives.

Recognition isn’t enough, however, for we can’t be good learners and critical thinkers if we aren’t aware of our own core values and how they shape how we engage with the world and the people around us. That awareness is central to the ability to reason about our values and to listen to others doing the same thing, i.e., to engage in ethical reasoning. To do this is to take values seriously, to regard them as not just mere opinion.

Being able to reason about our values won’t mean we can resolve every conflict, of course, but it may let us ratchet down the emotions that lead to unproductive or violent exchanges, and it may help us to change our own minds, even if not others’.

To reason about values, as with reasoning about other matters (which we will also talk about), we need to be able to identify the claims we make that involve or express what we take to be true about what is of value. These are what we’re going to call evaluative (or sometimes normative) claims. The next module will look at them, along with the contrast group, non-evaluative claims, which, as its name suggests, covers everything that doesn’t involve a judgment about what’s of value.