What Makes a Value Worth Keeping?

Most of us have values we believe are worth keeping.

We value honesty, courage, kindness, freedom, justice, loyalty, creativity and countless other ideals. But have you ever stopped to ask why those values deserve your commitment?

In the previous article, we explored Nietzsche’s idea of revaluation: the process of examining inherited values and deciding whether they are worth affirming, revising or rejecting.

But that raises an even deeper question.

How do we make that decision?

Different philosophers have proposed very different answers.

Some argue that a value should be judged by whether it promotes human flourishing. Others ask whether it could be universalised, whether it maximises wellbeing, whether it expands freedom, whether it survives rational dialogue, or whether it affirms life itself.

In this article, we’ll use the six basic DSRP moves to build a clearer picture of evaluation before exploring some of the most influential standards philosophers have proposed for judging the values we live by.

Defining Evaluation

Before we can understand evaluation, it helps to clarify what it is—and what it isn’t.

We evaluate things every day. We evaluate books, restaurants, investments, job candidates and ideas. But evaluating a value is different. It requires us to ask not just whether we like a value, but whether it deserves to guide the way we live.

These distinctions show that evaluation is more than deciding what we like. It is the practice of giving reasons for why a value deserves—or does not deserve—our commitment.

The challenge, of course, is deciding what those reasons should be. Different philosophers have proposed different standards for evaluating values, and it is those standards that we will explore throughout the rest of this article.

The Parts of Evaluation

Now let’s look inside the concept of evaluation.

Rather than treating it as a single act, we’ll organise it into parts. This isn’t meant to be any one philosopher’s model of evaluation. It’s our model—a way of making the concept easier to understand and work with.

Breaking evaluation into parts helps us see that it is more than deciding whether we approve or disapprove of something. It is a structured process of applying criteria, considering evidence, reaching a reasoned judgment and remaining open to learning.

How the Parts Connect

Knowing the parts is useful, but it doesn’t tell us how evaluation works.

This step looks at the relationships between the parts. Together, they reveal evaluation as a process of moving from a value to a reasoned judgment.

Looking at these relationships reveals that evaluation is not simply about reaching a conclusion. It is about understanding how we arrived there.

Perhaps most importantly, different philosophers often disagree because they begin with different evaluation criteria. If we change the standard by which we judge a value, we may reach a very different conclusion—even when looking at exactly the same evidence.

Understanding that relationship prepares us for the next step: exploring some of the different standards philosophers have proposed for evaluating values.

Exploring Evaluation Criteria

One part of our model deserves a closer look: evaluation criteria.

Every evaluation depends on a standard. Without one, we can say that we like or dislike a value, but we can’t explain why it deserves our commitment.

Different criteria lead us to ask different questions.

• Does this value promote human flourishing?
• Does it maximise wellbeing?
• Could everyone consistently live by it?
• Does it expand human freedom?
• Does it help people solve real problems?
• Does it affirm life and create new possibilities?

Notice that the value being evaluated hasn’t changed. What changes is the criterion we use to judge it.

This is one reason philosophers often disagree. They may be evaluating the same value but using different standards.

By zooming in on evaluation criteria, we can see that disagreements about values are often disagreements about how values should be judged. Understanding those different standards is the key to understanding the philosophical theories that follow.

Evaluation in Context

So far we’ve explored evaluation as a concept. Now let’s zoom out and look at the different lenses people can use when judging a value.

An evaluation lens does not tell us in advance whether a value is good or bad. It directs our attention towards a particular feature of the value—its effects, its consistency, the kind of person it shapes, the relationships it creates, or the forms of life it makes possible.

Different lenses may reveal different strengths and weaknesses in the same value.

Zooming out helps us see that evaluating a value is rarely a matter of applying one simple test.

The same value may look admirable through one lens and troubling through another. A value might strengthen individual freedom while weakening social equality. It might produce good short-term consequences while creating harmful long-term effects. It might preserve an important tradition while also reinforcing an unjust distribution of power.

These tensions do not make evaluation impossible. They make it more demanding.

Using several lenses allows us to build a fuller picture before reaching a judgment. It also helps us understand why philosophers often disagree: they may not be looking at different values, but looking at the same value through different evaluative lenses.

The next step is to examine some of the philosophers who developed these lenses and see how each of them answered the question: What makes a value worth keeping?

Philosophers’ Perspectives

So far we’ve explored a range of evaluation lenses. Now let’s look at some of the philosophers associated with them.

Each thinker developed a much richer philosophy than a single question can capture. The questions below are therefore best understood as concise interpretations of the features each philosopher asks us to notice—not as direct quotations or complete summaries of their work.

These associations are grounded in identifiable features of the philosophers’ work. Aristotle places virtues and the flourishing life at the centre of ethics; Kant evaluates principles through universal moral law; and Mill evaluates actions and institutions through their effects on happiness.

Nietzsche is more difficult to reduce to a single test, but life-affirmation, honesty and the effects of morality on human flourishing are recurring evaluative concerns in his philosophy.

The pragmatists emphasise practical consequences and revisability. James asks what experiential difference a belief makes, while Dewey treats ethical judgments as provisional hypotheses that should be revised in light of the consequences of acting upon them.

Habermas connects the validity of norms to whether all affected people could agree to them through rational discourse. MacIntyre instead emphasises virtues, traditions, practices and the goods internal to those practices.

Sen and Nussbaum assess social arrangements through people’s real opportunities to be and do certain things. Foucault examines historically specific practices of power and the kinds of subjects they produce.

Gilligan’s work helped establish care as a distinct perspective in moral evaluation. Rawls uses the original position and veil of ignorance to model impartial judgment about social institutions, while Sartre emphasises situated freedom, choice and responsibility.

No single philosopher supplies the final answer.

Each lens reveals something while leaving other considerations in the background. A value may appear defensible when judged by its consequences but troubling when examined through power, care or impartiality. Philosophical disagreement often arises not only because thinkers reach different conclusions, but because they direct attention towards different features of the value being assessed.

Rather than treating these philosophers as a menu from which we must select one permanent standard, we can use their perspectives as intellectual tools. Looking through several lenses gives us a fuller understanding of the values we inherit, question and ultimately choose to live by.

Trying Evaluation

The best way to understand evaluation is to compare what different lenses reveal.

Choose a value that matters to you. It might be honesty, loyalty, ambition, equality, obedience, independence or generosity.

Then examine it through several lenses.

For example, suppose we choose loyalty.

• Virtue: What kind of character does loyalty help cultivate?
• Duty: Could loyalty be adopted as a consistent principle by everyone?
• Consequences: What happens when people remain loyal, and what happens when they do not?
• Care: How does loyalty affect relationships and responsibilities?
• Freedom: Does loyalty support people’s ability to choose, or constrain it?
• Power: Who gains influence from expectations of loyalty, and who may be silenced?
• Life-affirmation: What kind of life does loyalty encourage?
• Pragmatism: What happens when people actually live by this value in different situations?

You may find that the lenses point in different directions.

Loyalty can sustain trust, friendship and community. It can also protect harmful people, institutions or traditions. Whether it deserves our commitment may depend on what we are loyal to, why we are loyal to it, and what that loyalty produces.

After examining the value, ask:

• What did each lens help me notice?
• Which concerns seem most important in this case?
• Where do the lenses conflict?
• What evidence would strengthen or weaken my judgment?
• Should the value be affirmed, revised, limited or rejected?
• How confident am I in that conclusion?

The goal is not to mechanically add up the answers or force every lens to agree.

Evaluation requires judgment. Some considerations may matter more than others in a particular context, but we should be able to explain why.

Using several lenses helps us avoid mistaking one perspective for the whole picture. It does not guarantee a perfect answer, but it can lead to a more thoughtful, transparent and revisable one.