What is a value?

 

In other to live a valuable life,  it is important to know what values are and which values you can achieve. Regular visitors of our website know that this is the philosophy of this blog. But what exactly is a value? As mentioned in our list of values, we have adopted a fairly broad definition of 'value'. Even virtues are included here (because virtues are valuable?). Yet, this raises the question of what the definition is of a 'value'.

To answer this question, I always like to point out the definition of a value described by Timmons (in Moral Theory, an introduction (2nd, p. 8):

"To speak of the value of something is to speak of its being either good or bad, or neither good nor bad (some things have no value, positive or negative)"

A nice, simple definition of 'value'. As a consequence, to live a valuable life is to live a good life. But this does not say much as this immediately raises the question of what a good life is. 

To answer that question, it can be useful to understand the distinction between intrinsic value and extrinsic value. In a next post, I will explain what the difference is between these two concepts. This is important because your ideas about the nature of the good (and the good life) are in the end ideas about the nature of intrinsic value.

But first I would like to hear from you! Do you have an example when life was good? (or is this the wrong question?)