What is value pluralism?

Value pluralism is the view that there are several basic, objective values that cannot be reduced to a single master value and that may conflict with and be incommensurable with one another.

What does it mean for values to be incommensurable?

Two values or options are incommensurable when there is no common measure on which they can be precisely ranked, so that neither is better than the other and yet they are not exactly equal in value.

Value Monism and Pluralism

Value monism holds that there is ultimately one basic value to which all others reduce, whereas value pluralism holds that there are several irreducible and sometimes incommensurable basic values.

Definition

Value monism is the thesis that there is one fundamental kind of value in terms of which all other values are to be explained or measured; value pluralism is the thesis that there are several basic values that are not reducible to any one of them, and that may be incommensurable.

Scope

This topic covers the dispute between monism and pluralism about value: the monist drive to reduce all value to a single source, the pluralist case for irreducibly many values, the closely related issues of incommensurability and incomparability, and the implications of pluralism for rational choice and for tragic conflict among goods. It bears directly on whether consequentialist maximization across a single scale is coherent.

Core questions

Is there a single ultimate value, or are there several irreducible ones?
Are distinct values always commensurable on a common scale?
Can there be rational choice among incommensurable options?
Does value pluralism entail genuine moral dilemmas and tragic loss?

Key theories

Value pluralism: Berlin's thesis that there is an irreducible plurality of objective human values that can conflict and are not all measurable on a single scale, so that some losses in choosing among them are unavoidable.
Incommensurability of values: Raz's account on which two options are incommensurable when neither is better than the other nor are they equal, challenging the assumption that all values can be ranked on one cardinal measure.

History

Classical utilitarianism embodied a value monism centred on welfare, while Ross (1930) defended pluralism about intrinsic goods. Berlin (1969) made value pluralism a major theme of twentieth-century thought, arguing that ultimate human ends genuinely conflict, and Raz (1986) and later Ruth Chang sharpened the analysis of incommensurability and its implications for practical reason.

Debates

Whether incommensurability blocks rational choice: If values cannot be measured on a common scale, choice among them may seem arbitrary; pluralists respond that comparability without a common measure, or a fourth relation like parity, can preserve rationality.
Pluralism and aggregative theories: If values are genuinely plural and incommensurable, consequentialist theories that maximize a single quantity of value face the objection that there is no such unified quantity to maximize.

Key figures

Isaiah Berlin
W. D. Ross
Joseph Raz
Ruth Chang

Seminal works

berlin1969
ross1930
raz1986

Frequently asked questions

What is value pluralism?: Value pluralism is the view that there are several basic, objective values that cannot be reduced to a single master value and that may conflict with and be incommensurable with one another.
What does it mean for values to be incommensurable?: Two values or options are incommensurable when there is no common measure on which they can be precisely ranked, so that neither is better than the other and yet they are not exactly equal in value.