Redeeming the Value(s) of the Social World

Abstract

This article discusses some of the central theses proposed by Nathalie Heinich in her book Des Valeurs ( Values). After focusing on the distinction between norms and values, and the inductive approach favoured by an axiological sociology, we will address how public values might emotionally engage actors, the specificity of moral values and of people as ‘objects of valuation’ and, finally, the ambiguities inherent in the ‘axiologically neutral’ reconstruction of an ‘axiological grammar’. Somewhat countering the ‘descriptive relativism’ that Nathalie Heinich advocates, we will argue, from a pragmatist stance, in favour of a minimal moral realism based on axiological affordances. Finally, we will show that such a stance helps to account for the normative functioning of the public sphere.

Towards an Axiological Sociology

“…Correlatively, I do not think that a variation would appear only ‘on the basis of an invariant’ (Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2017: 180; Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2020: 256). Instead it appears in the comparison between two successive states of an entity which appears to remain the same in the eyes of the actors despite these variations.…”

“…On the other hand, I find it hard to recognise my model when Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez (2017: 180; 2020: 256) suggest that I ‘waver’ between evaluation as ‘value creation’ and as a ‘valuation of a property that allegedly already exists in the object at stake’. I show how the application to an object of a criterion (or property) satisfying a value-principle, according to the ‘affordances’ offered by the object and to the criteria implemented by the subjects, all make valuation both objective (in the sense of objectual: it is the ‘valuation of a property’) and representational (it is the ‘value creation’), in varying proportions.…”

“…I am grateful to Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez (2017: 177; 2020: 254) for highlighting the link between private values and emotional commitment, and for taking a more in-depth approach to the essential question of emotions than I have. This issue makes it possible to introduce a very relevant distinction between perceptions of values and value judgements, and also to solve the ‘methodological problem that the potential invisibility of private attachments raises for axiological sociology’, according to their apt formulation.…”

“…I greatly appreciated the terms chosen by Laurence Kaufmann and Philippe Gonzalez to describe my project, such as ‘unfolding implicit values’ (Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2017: 170; Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2020: 249), and ‘inferential inquiry’ (‘This inferential […] inquiry is aimed at reconstituting, from their point of view , the values that motivate the actors’, this ‘deconfinement’ of values during controversies that put ‘an end to the tacit incorporation of values in the norms ’ (Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2017: 170; Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2020: 249). Such terms very accurately describe my programme as ‘axiological sociology’ (Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2017: 170; Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2020: 249).…”

“…I show how the application to an object of a criterion (or property) satisfying a value-principle, according to the ‘affordances’ offered by the object and to the criteria implemented by the subjects, all make valuation both objective (in the sense of objectual: it is the ‘valuation of a property’) and representational (it is the ‘value creation’), in varying proportions. This is why the ‘hypothesis of axiological affordances’ (Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2017: 180; Kaufmann and Gonzalez, 2020: 256) only partially switches the model towards objectivism (and not towards ‘universalism’ as they suggest), because the criteria or properties allowing the use of these affordances are part of an axiological equipment belonging to the evaluator’s habitus. In short, my model does not ‘waver’ between contradictory theoretical options (objectivism vs. constructivism) – instead it shows how evaluative processes integrate and articulate them.…”