Value Judgment - Value Judgments and Their Context

Value Judgments and Their Context

Some argue that true objectivity is impossible, that even the most rigorous rational analysis is founded on the set of values accepted in the course of analysis. Consequently, all conclusions are necessarily value judgments (and therefore may be parochial). Of course, putting all conclusions in one category does nothing to distinguish between them, and is therefore a useless descriptor. Categorizing a conclusion as a value judgment takes substance when the context framing the judgment is specified.

As an example, scientific "truths" are considered objective, but are held tentatively, with the understanding that more careful evidence and/or wider experience might change matters. Further, a scientific view (in the sense of a conclusion based upon a value system) is a value judgment based upon rigorous evaluation and wide consensus. With this example in mind, characterizing a view as a value judgment is vague without description of the context surrounding it.

However, as noted in the first segment of this article, in common usage the term value judgment has a much simpler meaning with context simply implied, not specified.