Hi everyone,

I greatly appreciated the opportunity to share my thoughts about "the problem of value" on Monday evening. I've been reflecting on various issues raised in the discussion, and figured it might be a useful exercise for me to lay out my position in a series of bullet points. This is just a start, and I'll continue to revise for clarity and coherence (if not for consistency!). Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions.

Traits are appropriately defined as consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (McCrae & Costa, 1990).
By definition, traits are reliable. Less reliable phenomena (e.g., passing moods) are less "trait like", precisely on that account.
All psychological phenomena are semi-reliable.

If a phenomenon were not consistent in some respect, we would not be able to speak of it.

Some phenomena are more reliable than others.
If we could imagine a perfectly reliable phenomenon, it would be in essence ahistorical.

i.e., an ideal form, a pure trait.

Trait purity (i.e., perfect reliability) is a fiction insofar as it is not rooted in our lived experience.

Of course, every time we encounter impure traits (e.g., Mildrid's introversion), it is possible to interpret them in light of pure (idealized) traits. But this is a conceptual (pre-empirical) move.

Semi-reliable traits are real. They are aspects of our lived experience. Moreover, it may be possible to account for variations in traits (across individuals or over specified periods of time) in terms of other physiological, psychological, or social phenomena. This is an empirical issue, and I make no commitment to any particular thesis here. I'm inclined to agree with Gregg that "there are genetic differences that track onto behavioral dispositional differences", but we would have to clarify what it means to have a "disposition" to do something. In any case, it doesn't matter to me (in this context) whether specific empirical claims are supported or refuted.
My core argument concerns Value, not fact.
Value might be identified with "what I want", but it is more appropriate to say that value is what I should want (regardless of what I want as a matter of fact).
I might want money. I might seek justice. I might value friendship. We can certainly debate the relative merits of these and other goals. Such matters fall in the domain of ethics.
But some values have epistemological implications.
e.g., I want my world to be predictable, consistent, reliable. This has implications for how I see other people.

Specifically: If I value reliability, I'm inclined to interpret other people's behavior in terms of "pure" traits. This was well understood by Nietzsche (1887/1974):

"Society is pleased to feel that the virtue of this person, the ambition of that one, and the thoughtfulness and passion of the third provide it with a dependable instrument that is always at hand; society honors this instrumental nature, this way of remaining faithful to oneself, this unchangeability of views, aspirations, and even faults[,] and lavishes its highest honors upon it. Such esteem…breeds "character" and brings all change, all re-learning, all self-transformation into ill repute." (The Gay Science, p. 238)

Speaking poetically, If I value reliability, every phenotypic (semi-reliable) psychological phenomena can be interpreted in terms of a (material or spiritual) genotype.
So considered, the "self" is petrified. Change is a surface runoff. The phenotype is less real than the genotype (or its official representative: the brain).
If I hope to understand myself properly, I need to place in question the values that are guiding my self-interpretations.
If I hope to break free of the semi-reliable patterns that have heretofore inspired my behavior, I may need to change the way that I look at myself.
This is not a matter of changing what I see, but how I see it. If my self-interpretation is guided by reliability (as an epistemic norm) -- if I look at myself from a "scientific" point of view -- I slide away from my (semi-reliable) lived experience toward my own lifeless essence.
Substantive change -- and authentic self-understanding -- implies that reliability has been preserved yet surpassed by alternative epistemic values.
This is "the problem of value" in its most primitive form. I am what I should value, but this value is not distinct from fact.

On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 5:52 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to say thanks to Steve Q for sharing his story regarding the problem of value in psychology. It affirmed for me strongly how fraught the problems of simply applying the methodological language game of MENS is to human psychology, as it comes with many different “value parameters” that can quickly be overlooked and hidden, and extreme assumptions of “objectivity” become masked and tangled with the methods.

My proposal is for a metapsychology that uses the ToK System instead of empirical methodology as the language game of MENS. The reason is obviously, metaphysical/conceptual clarity. For example, it was clear that the exchange, as all the TOK Community exchanges have been, along with virtually all other zoom exchanges, take place on the Culture-Person plane of existence and involve justification, investment and influence dynamics. In the broad sense, Steve shared his justification narrative for his struggles with the justifications that empirical psychology, especially trait personality psychology, offer.

Mike M largely concurred. I did also, with a caveat. The problem is largely resolved, IMO, when we have the right metaphysical map of human psychology. The “traits” of the Big Five are, indeed, dispositional tendencies that emerge over the course of development. There are genetic differences that track onto behavioral dispositional differences, although the road is complicated and filled with feedback loops, such that genes clearly don’t cause traits.

I could go on, but the point is that we need a theory of “traits”, just like we need a theory/frame for talking about our entire subject matter. And, ala Mike’s arguments, that does need to be intersubjectively constructed. (Note, BTW, I am noting an interesting set of tensions is emerging between folks in the group who emphasize epistemological positions that are grounded in: 1) subjective/phenomenological v 2) objective/behavioral v 3) intersubjective/language).

The question I pose: What is the proper language game for human psychology? For me, the metapsychology provided by UTOK provides the best way forward. For starters, it shines the light on the Enlightenment Gap and offers a way to resolve that. I would argue it was in the shadow of the Enlightenment Gap that Steve found his “is-ought” problem. And the proper way forward is not via the empirical methods of science, but first, a language game that gets the field of inquiry clear. We were headed in that direction near the end: What are the needs we have as Primates? How do we justify our selves as Persons?

Best,
Gregg

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)

Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

Check out the Unified Theory Of Knowledge homepage at:

https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/

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