Value Theory and the Moral Limits of Markets

UCalgary Philosophy PhD Candidate, Andrew Allison, has had two articles published on the topic of value theory and the moral limits of markets this winter.

The first, “Value Pluralism and a Price for Everything,” was published in Public Affairs Quarterly. In it, Andrew argues that value pluralism, the view that there are at least two irreducible, fundamental values, is conceptually compatible with all things having a price without there being a valuation mistake. Some anti-commodification critics have suggested that value pluralism automatically rules out a price for everything since it would require all values to be reduced to a single fundamental value; financial value. However, Andrew proposes two ways that this might not be the case. First, financial value could be compossible with other fundamental values. For example, a delicious meal sold at a restaurant can have the fundamental values of financial value, nutritional value, and aesthetic value. Or, financial value might itself be a non-fundamental, reducible value. For example, the financial value of a painting sold at auction might be reducible to the aesthetic value that the painting has.

Before publication, Andrew delivered this paper to the Department of Philosophy’s own Apeiron Society for the Practice of Philosophy, in December of 2023.

This project was partially funded by a Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement awarded to Andrew by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. This award funded a visiting semester that Andrew spent in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University during the Winter 2024 semester to complete work on the project.

While at Georgetown, Andrew co-authored the second article, “Positive Freedom and the Social Meaning of Money” with professors Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski which was just published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy. In it, Andrew and his co-authors argue that money does not have a univocal profane social meaning as both anti-commodification critics and market defenders alike have suggested it does. One way in which money has a profound social meaning is in its ability to procure positive freedom, a high-level, transcendent value across a number of political philosophical frameworks. Positive freedom is the autonomous capacity to achieve one's ends and goals. The more money one has, the greater ability they have to acquire food, shelter, education, aesthetic experiences, etc. More money therefore means greater positive freedom. Thus, money also has at least one profound social meaning; positive freedom.

Because money has this profound social meaning, some objections to markets that rely on money having a strictly profane social meaning will fail. For example, objections to markets in certain goods that suggest that those goods are degraded when traded for money because money has only a profane social meaning, will not succeed.