Non-Economistic Value

Abstract

Economic discussion, as well as other discussions of problems of conduct, and that which aims to be scientific as well as that of a popular character, is permeated with the distinction between economic and non-economic values, and also with the contrasted notions of ends and means or value as such and “power” for realizing value. Both these contrasts, and all their four terms, are, however, exasperatingly vague in meaning. In a former paper¹ I have attempted to simplify and untangle the confusion by showing that both contrasts are merely different ways of viewing the single fact of choice. By way of introduction to the subject of the paper, it is necessary to recapitulate this argument briefly. The notion of means or of the expenditure of “energy” in realizing value is an aspect of the recognition that values are alternative to each other, that to secure one we give up others which might have been had instead. Where this is not the case, if that ever happens, there is a very different sort of problem of conduct involved, if any, and the notion of value itself applies in a very different sense if at all.

Citation

Emmett, R.B. (2011), "Non-Economistic Value", Emmett, R.B. (Ed.) Frank H. Knight in Iowa City, 1919–1928 (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 29 Part 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 197-217. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-4154(2011)000029B019