Ralph Wedgwood: The Measurement of Value

Colloquium lecture by Ralph Wedgwood (USC, Los Angeles), organized by the Department of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy

There are many different ways in which things can be good – or in other words, many different values. But goodness comes in degrees: some things are better than others. Is it possible, at least in principle, to measure how good something is? If so, values would have to possess certain features that would explain why such measurement is possible. There are three conceptions of these features that philosophers have at least implicitly recognized: the model of extensive measurement; the model of difference measurement; and the decision-theoretic model. According to what is argued here, the first model is not a plausible conception of the measurement of value; the second model captures some true features of value, but it cannot explain why value is measurable in the way that it is; only the third model can explain the measurability of value. In conclusion, some of the implications of this point are explored: in a sense, it leads to a view of value as “holistic” (rather than “atomistic” as the model of extensive measurement would suggest).

When & where?

Wednesday, 26 September 2018, 3.15-5pm
Room Omega, Faculty of Philosophy