Value Pluralism

Both Kant and Mill try to derive all values from one basic value, respect for persons for Kant, and utility for Mill.

However, both attempts face many difficulties; for example, Kant’s disregard of consequences leads to strongly unintuitive conclusions and Utilitarianism has problems with rights and fair distribution.

Perhaps morality is more complex than value monism, the view that one value grounds the whole of morality, assumes. Perhaps the sources of moral obligation are multiple and irreducible. For example, some have claimed that there are five irreducible sources of value:

1. Obligations to persons or institutions, such as parents and country, arising from special relations one has to them

2. Constraints on action arising from rights other persons have

3. The effects of one’s action on everyone’s welfare

4. Perfectionist values, such as the intrinsic value of art or knowledge

5. Commitment to one’s projects.

Note that (1)-(5) say nothing about other animals or nature; obviously, adding such concerns will make the list longer.

If value pluralism is correct, morality is constitutionally very messy. The problem is that it’s far from clear whether (1)-(5) can be maximally realized even in ideal situations, and certainly they are in conflict in the actual world. This entails that at some point or other they need to be ranked, and that’s where problems start because there is no principled way of doing that. In other realms, this is not that important. For example, there’s no way of settling the question whether Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus is better than Puccini’s Tosca, but the practical consequences are not that important. However, the inability to settle the relations among (1)-(5) is.

Perhaps, when conflict arises because two irreducible values are confronting each other, one is allowed to follow either, and the decision may be taken on non-moral grounds such as tradition, religion, or basic unjustifiable preferences. However, this destroys the autonomy of morality and in the case of unjustified basic preferences makes some moral choices hard to defend inter-subjectively.