MVE6030
The Good Society and Its Educated Citizens
Topic 1
Defining the Subject Matter and Framework of Social-Value Enquiry
(I) The Get-Set Questions
1. In defense of the core values of Hong Kong society
a. What are the core values of Hong Kong society?
b. Is society with all these core values a good society?
c. What are the core values of the good society?
2. Where can these core values be found in a good society?
a. Are they embedded in its social institutions?
b. Are they observed in the social routines practiced by members of a society?
c. Are they embodied in the virtues of members of a society?
3. Who have the rights and obligation to define and to institute the core values of
Hong Kong society?
a. Hong-Kongese?
b. Hong Kongese-Chinese?
c. Chinese-Hong Kongese?
d. Chinese?
(II) The Tools: A Framework of Value Enquiry
A. The aim of value education
1. The teaching of values
2. The cultivation of ability of evaluating and capacity of justifying one’s value
judgments
B. Definitions of value: The object of value enquiry
1. D.N. Aspin’s definition: “Conduct, performances, situations, occurrence, states of
affairs, production, all these is associated with the ways in which we perceive them,
appraise them, judge them, and the way we are inclined towards or away from,
attract to or repelled by. We choose them. We prefer them over other things in the
same class of comparison. We want to follow their model or to replicate them. We
want to emulate them.” (Aspin, 1999, p.125)
2. 唐君毅的定義：「大體上說來，一切具價值之事物，都是人所欲得的，人所尋求的、
喜悅的、愛護的、讚美的、或崇敬的。簡言之，即都是人所欲或所好的。一切具負價
值或反價值之事物，則都是人所不欲得的，人所不尋求的、厭棄的、憎恨的、貶斥的、
鄙視的。簡言之，即都是人所不欲或所惡的」。（唐君毅，2005，頁 707）
C. Typology of values: Values can be classified according to different dimensions. Two of
the common dimensions in use are
1. Extrinsic-intrinsic dimension: According to this dimension values can generally be
categorized into
a. “An intrinsic value can be defined as something that is valuable for its own sake”
(Ellis, p.12) or important in and of itself.
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b. “An extrinsic value is valuable not for its own sake, but because it facilitates
getting or accomplishing something that is valuable for its own sake.” (Ellis, p.12)
It means the worth or desirability of a thing or person is derived from its
instrumentality and efficiency in achieving something more desirable.
Based on this classification, two important conceptual tools can be derived for
value enquiry. They are
a. Value priority: When values are in conflict, such as an intrinsic value is in conflict
with an extrinsic value, one has to set the priority for one value to be over the
other. In general, the intrinsic value should have the priority over the extrinsic. It
is because extrinsic values are only instrumental (acting as means or tools) in
attaining some more profound and substantive value, such as an intrinsic value.
b. ‘Prima facie’ value: When intrinsic values are in conflict, a value enquiry has to
proceed to the level of deciding the ‘Prima facie’ value. According to Ralph Ellis
definition, “in the context of value theory, ‘Prima facie’ can be taken to mean
‘unless some more important values takes priority.’” (Ellis, 1998, p.11) In short,
in facing conflicts among intrinsic values, one has to decide which intrinsic value
should be prioritized to be the most profound.
2. Individual-social dimension: Values can also be classified in terms of their scope of
application. According to Ronald Dworkin’s formulation value studies can be
differentiated into “ethnics studies how people best manage their responsibility to
live well, and personal morality what each as an individual owes other people.
Political morality, in contrast, studies what we all together owe others as individuals
when we act in and on behalf of that artificial collective person.” (Dworkin, 2011, Pp.
327-8) Accordingly, values may be categorized into
a. Ethical value: It refers to desirable traits and features we attributed to human
behaviors, actions, and conducts.
b. Moral value: It refers to desirable traits and features attributed to human
interactions and relationships among fellows humans.
c. Political values: It refers to the ethical and moral values taken by a given society
as of prominent importance that they should be imposed upon all members of
that society coercively.
3. To summarize, values may be classified into the following typology:
Extrinsic values
Intrinsic values
Prima facie value
Ethical values
Moral values
Political values
D. Typology of Evaluations: In value enquiry, two essential constituents are vital in the
evaluation process.
1. Levels are evaluations: According two theorists in value studies, evaluations may
be differentiated into several levels
a. Harry Frankfurt’s first-order and second-order evaluations:
“Human beings are not alone in having desires and motives, or in making
choices. They share these things with members of certain other species, some
of which even appears to engage in deliberation and to make decisions based
on prior thought. It seems to be particularly characteristic of humans, however,
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that they are able to form …second order desires. …no animal other than
man…appears to have the capacity for reflective self-evaluation that is
manifested in the formation of second-order desires.” (Frank, 1971, P.6-7)
Accordingly, evaluation may be categorized into
i. First-order evaluation: It refers to the capacity of evaluation shared almost by
all species in adopting and choosing more or less instinctively the most
desirable conditions for their survivals.
ii. Second-order evaluation: It refers to the human capacity of self-reflection on
one’s evaluation, in other words, evaluation of evaluation. More specifically,
it refers to human capacity of providing reasoned scrutiny or even public
justification to one’s own value judgment.
b. Charles Taylor’s weak and strong evaluations:
Charles Taylor elaborates Frankfurt’s formulation by suggesting that “I agree
with Frankfurt that this capacity to evaluate desires is bound up with our power of
self-evaluation. …but I believe we can come closer to defining what is involved in
this mode of agency if we make a further distinction, between two broad kinds of
evaluation of desire,” namely weak and strong evaluations. (Taylor, 1985, p. 16)
i. Weak evaluation: It refers to the kind of evaluations focusing on the
outcomes of the desired actions, more specifically the practical calculation of
the outcome in quantitative terms, such as the ‘maximum quantity of
happiness to the maximum number of persons’, as the doctrine of
utilitarianism would endorsed. (Taylor, 1985, Pp.21-23)
ii. Strong evaluation: It refers to the kind of evaluation, whose criteria of
evaluation go beyond quantitative calculations of outcome of desired action
in point. They address the concern about the qualitative distinction of ‘good’
and/or ‘worth’ of the action under evaluation.
Charles Taylor has related the concept of strong evaluation with different “levels”
of human agencies, which refers to the commitments and efforts that human
agents are willing to invest into the evaluation. They are
i. Justificatory with articulacy and depth: It refers to the kind of human agency
(commitments and efforts) that evaluators are ready to render in the form of
explicit articulations and justifications of their value judgment. Furthermore,
these justifications are to be grounded on ethical, moral and/or political
validities and “depth”.
ii. Supported with sense of responsibility and agency: A strong evaluative
assertion must also be supported with human practices and actions, i.e.
human agencies. Furthermore, those who are in support of the strong
evaluative positions are not just paying lip services but are ready to bear the
cost or even lost for its fulfillment
iii. Embodied with notion of identity: A person who are in support of a strong
evaluative stance will most probably hold that specific value orientation
continuously over time, consistently across various circumstances and
coherently with the other aspects of his life. In other words, the value
orientation in point will become part of one’s own identity.
iv. Embedded in community: The last kind of human agency in supporting a
strong evaluation is a community, which refers to a group of human agents
with shared value orientation and ready to work concertedly to fulfil the
specific value orientation in point. In other words, the strong and intrinsic
value in point has been embedded into the practices, routines and lifeworld
of that community.
2. Justificatory bases of strong evaluation: In value studies, there are several
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theoretical perspectives available in providing justificatory bases for strong
evaluation for intrinsic values. They are
a. Deontological theory (Transcendentalism) of evaluation: The theoretical tradition
can usually be traced back to Kant’s concept of categorical imperative. It is the
universal normative rule, which transcends all particular ontological situations,
i.e. the deontological principle of ethical conduct.
i. Kant’s conception: “I ought never to act except in such a way that I could
also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” (Kant, 1996, p. 57)
ii. It is called the categorical imperative because it is “'categorical' in a sense
that the principle is not based upon different goals and desires people might
happen to have, and ‘imperative’ since it tells people what they ought to do.”
(Rogerson, 1991, p. 108)
iii. Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative can simply be stated as that in
testing for the morality of actions, “an action is morally permissible if you
would be willing to have everyone act as you are proposing to act (if you
would be willing to have the ‘maxim’ of your action become a universal law).
An action is morally wrong if you are not willing to have everyone act as you
are proposing to act.” (Rogerson, 1991, p. 108)
b. The institutional bases (Institutionalism) of evaluation
i. Alasdair McIntyre, in contrast to Neo-Kantian stance, proposes that the
social ground of intrinsic-value evaluation “can never be grounded by an
appeal to some neo-Kantian ideal of a set of norms presupposed by all
speakers in a discussion. Rather, the concept of the better argument must
always be ground within social particular tradition of philosophical enquiry.”
(Doody, 1991, p. 61)
ii. More specifically, McIntyre contends that it is within a tradition of a craft of
inquiry that rationality and ethical principles can find their authority or ground
of justification. Hence, “for on McIntyre’s account, moral rules are not
embodiments of a pure practical reason whose charge is to issue statements
of ought which necessarily bind ahistorical beings. Rather moral rules which
express claims of ought are expressions or statements of …virtues and rules
of practices that which were …grounded in a community of practice which
understood itself through those practices.” (Doody, 1991, p.68)
c. The realization-focused comparison of evaluation: Amartya Sen, the Nobel
Laureate in Economics 1998, in his recent book The Idea of Justice (2009),
suggests that there are two justificatory bases for evaluating the idea of justice,
namely “transcendental institutionalism” and “realization-focused comparison”.
The former is more or less the integration of the deontological and institutional
bases (see 2009, Pp.5-8, especially footnote on P.6). As for the base of
realization-focused comparison, it refers to the approach of evaluation
emphasizing on comparison of concrete societies that are existing and in full
operation, rather than focusing on some transcendental search of some
high-sounding moral ideals and institutional rules. Furthermore, emphasizing on
realization-focused comparison, this approach focuses more on the incremental
improvements (or the betterment) of the existing institutional settings or the
removal of undesirable elements of the status quo, rather than to strive for the
best at all cost.
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3. To summarize, evaluations can be categorized with the following typology
Transcendental-institutionalism
Deontologicalbased
Evaluation
Institutionalbased
Evaluation
Realizationfocused
Comparison
Instinctive/Reflexive Evaluation
Self-reflective Evaluation
Weak/Outcome-based Evaluation
Strong/Qualitative-based Evaluation
Justificatory with articulacy and depth
Supported with sense of responsibility &
agency
Embodied with sense of identity
Embedded in communal bondage
E. Allocating your point of departure…..
Additional References
Ellis, Ralph D. (1998). Just Results: Ethical Foundations for Policy Analysis. Washington,
D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Frankfurt, Harry (1971) “Freedom of the will and the concept of a person.” Journal of
Philosophy, 67 (1): 5-20.
Taylor, Charles (1985) “What is Human Agency?” In C. Taylor. Philosophical Papers 1:
Human Agency and Language. Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1.
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