The idea of a theory of values and the metaphor of value-landscapes

The paper addresses the growing prominence of values in academic and political discourse and argues that, despite their importance for identity, attitudes, and behavior, there is no widely accepted theory of values and values are empirically elusive. Focusing on the evaluative (axiological) rather than deontic use of values, the author proposes a program of empirical axiology to better link values to policy-relevant evidence. A pragmatic working definition is offered: values are reference points for evaluating something as positive or negative; they are often rationally and emotionally binding and provide long-term orientation and motivation for action. The paper motivates the need for a robust, cross-disciplinary value theory capable of connecting values to phenomena such as motivations, preferences, norms, actions, and attitudes, and outlines the challenges of measuring values given their abstraction and context-dependence. The problem statement emphasizes weak theories, fragmented disciplinary approaches, and inadequate empirical tools to inform governance and policy.

The paper provides a historical and interdisciplinary review of value theory. Classical accounts link action to three mental states—cognitive, affective, conative—where values align with conation. Economics reduced values to expected utility, a one-dimensional measure, drawing critiques of reductionism. Sociological insights from Durkheim and Weber treat values as social glue or individual beliefs; Nietzsche’s call to revalue values highlighted plurality. Early axiological theory by von Ehrenfels emphasized value intensity and desirability. Functionalist traditions dominate empirical value research: Parsons framed values as moral beliefs guiding action; Spranger and Morris inspired empirical psychology; Rokeach distinguished instrumental vs terminal values; Inglehart and Schwartz posited structured value systems (e.g., materialism vs post-materialism; self-transcendence vs self-enhancement, openness-to-change vs conservation). Gouveia’s functional theory integrates needs (survival vs thriving) and goals (personal, central, social) into a 2×3 matrix with 18 marker values. The author critiques functionalism on philosophical and methodological grounds: values as guides may collapse into deontic claims and poorly explain concrete actions; values as needs inherit Maslow-type issues and underplay socio-cultural diversity (anthropological evidence from Graeber). Spates identifies problems of empirical support, deductive imposition, and abstraction. Composite indicators can compound uncertainties (Kaiser et al.). The theory of planned behavior illustrates multiple layers of composite constructs, complicating links to high-level abstractions like values. Philosophical discourse has largely prioritized deontic logic and rational action, with niches in social choice and fitting-attitude analysis; interdisciplinary work (Brosch & Sander) introduces the metaphor of value landscapes. Overall, existing frameworks lack consensus, often presume universality, and inadequately capture plurality, context, and cultural variability.

The paper is primarily conceptual but outlines methodological directions for empirical axiology and demonstrates them via prior projects. It advocates mixed-method and transdisciplinary designs to overcome hurdles like values-as-truisms and weak links between articulated values and behavior. Key methodological components include: - Grounded, context-rich elicitation: Favor Fischhoff’s basic or partial perspectives paradigms over mere articulated values to reduce platitudes and anchor responses in realistic contexts. - Three-tiered empirical approach (SEAT project on Asian aquaculture ethics): (1) surveys to map value salience; (2) qualitative narrative- and scenario-based interviews to probe meanings and trade-offs; (3) deliberative workshops to develop considered judgments and explore consensus. - Cross-cultural comparative mapping: Identify differences in value salience and meanings across countries/cultures; attend to translation, narratives, and visual aids to enable participation (including by non-literate participants). - Conceptual modeling via value landscapes: Represent values as multi-dimensional entities characterized by proximity/relations to neighboring values, intensity (affective/motivational strength), contextuality (purpose- and scope-dependent meanings), and malleability (temporal change). - Caution with composite indicators: Recognize measurement uncertainty stacking; align theory complexity with data complexity; iteratively co-develop theory and empirical tools. - Transdisciplinary research protocol: Integrate social sciences, economics, philosophy, humanities, and stakeholder knowledge (including indigenous perspectives) to co-design contexts and evaluation criteria. These methods aim to generate robust, policy-relevant datasets to inform and test an empirical theory of values grounded in the value-landscapes metaphor.

- No accepted cross-disciplinary theory of values; values are empirically elusive and often treated at a high level of abstraction, hindering falsifiability and robust measurement. - Functionalist value theories are insufficient: As guides to action, they risk conflating evaluative and deontic uses and offer weak explanatory power for concrete behaviors; as cognitive expressions of needs, they underplay socio-cultural diversity and overgeneralize universality. - Composite indicators can compound uncertainties; value constructs typically sit at the highest level of abstraction, making reliable measurement challenging without context and triangulation. - Empirical mapping via the SEAT project shows culturally distinct value landscapes. Examples of first-ranked individual values for a ‘good life’: • Bangladesh (n≈404 valid): Religion and God 54.6%; Country 29.1%; Family and household 7.8%. • China (n≈380 valid): Country 30.4%; Family and household 27.7%; Local community 9.7%; Personal prosperity 9.9%; Religion and God 7.5%. - Values/principles misalignment: Some moral principles widely accepted in Western policy (e.g., Equity, Animal Welfare) were not consistently endorsed across the Asian contexts studied, while others (Polluter-pays, Precautionary) were widely accepted. - Values are poor standalone predictors of specific behaviors; they operate more reliably as justificatory resources and as weighting devices in deliberation about futures (e.g., scenario workshops). - Cornerstones for a value theory grounded in value landscapes: value-pluralism (reject monism; allow incommensurability in the abstract but comparability in context), contextuality of purpose and meaning (value terms like freedom vary by use-case), neighborhood sensitivity (trade-offs with adjacent values such as privacy vs security), intensity/affect, and malleability over time (cultural and historical change). - The universality and finiteness of value lists should be treated as hypotheses subject to empirical test, not assumptions.

The findings support the initial hypotheses that there is no broadly accepted theory of values and that values are elusive without context-sensitive methods. Empirical evidence from cross-cultural studies demonstrates that value salience and meanings vary, challenging universal lists and functionalist assumptions. The proposed value-landscapes model addresses these issues by treating values as multi-dimensional, context-dependent, relational, and dynamic. This reframing clarifies how values may influence valuing processes and, under certain conditions, specific actions, while acknowledging their limited predictive power absent contextualization. The approach advances empirical axiology by linking conceptual insights to methods (surveys, narratives, deliberation) that reduce truisms and capture trade-offs, thereby generating more reliable, policy-relevant evidence. The significance lies in enabling governance and policy to incorporate value diversity and context into decision-making, supporting deliberative processes and scenario evaluation, and informing the design of sustainable futures that respect plural values and ethical constraints.

The paper contributes a conceptual foundation for an empirical axiology centered on value-landscapes: a multi-dimensional, dynamic model with features of proximity, intensity, contextuality, and malleability. It critiques functionalist and universalist assumptions and demonstrates, through prior empirical work, how mixed methods and context-rich designs can reveal culturally distinct value configurations and their roles in deliberation. Future research directions include: - Developing and testing multi-dimensional measures that operationalize value-landscape features and neighborhood relations. - Advancing transdisciplinary protocols that integrate diverse disciplines and stakeholder/indigenous knowledge to co-design contexts and evaluate trade-offs. - Building methods to link values to social phenomena (attitudes, norms, preferences, actions) while managing measurement uncertainty. - Translating insights into policy-relevant indicators and options that are sensitive to pluralism and ethical limits, strengthening deliberative democracy and governance.

- The paper is conceptual; proposed models are not fully empirically validated within this article. - Measurement challenges: values’ high abstraction level, reliance on composite indicators, and context-dependence introduce significant uncertainty. - Limited predictive power: documented weak direct links from values to specific behaviors; findings underscore justificatory rather than causal roles absent contextualization. - Generalizability: empirical illustrations (e.g., SEAT) are context-specific (aquaculture in selected Asian countries) and may not generalize across domains or cultures without adaptation. - Potential deductive imposition risk remains unless future studies prioritize grounded, context-rich, and participatory methods to elicit values beyond truisms.