From what has been said, it immediately follows, of course, that a
determinate value is instituted as a decisive factor with respect to
what is to be done. Wherever a determinate good exists, there is an
adequate stimulus to action, and no judgment of what is to be done or
of the value of an object is called for. It is frequently assumed,
however, that valuation is a process of applying some fixed or
determinate value to the various competing goods of a situation; that
valuation implies a prior standard of value and consists in comparing
various goods with the standard as the supreme value. This assumption
requires examination. If it is sound it deprives the position which
has been taken of any validity. For it renders the judgment of what to
do a matter of applying a value existing ready-made, instead of
making--as we have done--the valuation a determination within the
practical judgment. The argument would run this way: Every practical
judgment depends upon a judgment of the value of the end to be
attained; this end may be such only proximately, but that implies
something else judged to be good, and so, logically, till we have
arrived at the judgment of a supreme good, a final end or _summum
bonum_. If this statement correctly describes the state of the case
there can be no doubt that a practical judgment depends upon a prior
recognition of value; consequently the hypothesis upon which we have
been proceeding reverses the actual facts.
The first thing by way of critical comment is to point out the
ambiguity in the term "end." I should like to fall back upon what was
said earlier about the thoroughly reciprocal character of means and
end in the practical judgment. If this be admitted it is also admitted
that only by a judgment of means--things having value in the carrying
of an indeterminate situation to a completion--is the end
determinately made out in judgment. But I fear I cannot count upon
this as granted. So I will point out that "end" may mean either the
_de facto_ limit to judgment, which by definition does not enter into
judgment at all, or it may mean the last and completing object of
judgment, the conception of that object in which a transitive
incompletely given situation would come to rest. Of end in the first
sense, it is to be said that it is not a value at all; of end in the
second sense, that it is identical with a finale of the kind we have
just been discussing or that it is determined in judgment, not a value
given by which to control the judgment. It may be asserted that in the
illustration used some typical suit of clothes is the value which
affords the standard of valuation of all the suits which are offered
to the buyer; that he passes judgment on their value as compared with
the standard suit as an end and supreme value. This statement brings
out the ambiguity just referred to. The need of something to wear is
the _stimulus_ to the judgment of the value of suits offered, and
possession of a suit puts an end _to_ judgment. It is an end _of_
judgment in the objective, not in the possessive, sense of the
preposition "of"; it is an end not in the sense of aim, but in the
sense of a terminating limit. When possession begins, judgment has
already ceased. And if argument _ad verucundiam_ has any weight I may
point out that this is the doctrine of Aristotle when he says we never
deliberate about ends, but only about means. That is to say, in all
deliberation (or practical judgment or inquiry) there is always
something outside of judgment which fixes its beginning and end or
terminus. And I would add that, according to Aristotle, deliberation
always ceases when we have come to the "first link in the chain of
causes, which is last in the order of discovery," and this means "when
we have traced back the chain of causes [means] to ourselves." In
other words, the last end-in-view is always that which operates as the
direct or immediate means of setting our own powers in operation. The
end-in-view upon which judgment of action settles down is simply the
adequate or complete means to the doing of something.
We do deliberate, however, about _aims_, about ends-in-view--a fact
which shows their radically different nature from ends as limits to
deliberation. The aim in the present instance is not the suit of
clothes, but the _getting of a proper_ suit. That is what is precisely
estimated or valuated; and I think I may claim to have shown that the
determination of this aim is identical with the determination of the
value of a suit through comparison of the values of cheapness,
durability, style, pattern of different suits offered. Value is not
determined by comparing various suits with an ideal model, but by
comparing various suits with respect to cheapness, durability,
adaptability _with one another_--involving, of course, reference also
to length of purse, suits already possessed, etc., and other specific
elements in the situation which demands that something be done. The
purchaser may, of course, have settled upon something which serves as
a model before he goes to buy; but that only means that his judging
has been done beforehand; the model does not then function in
judgment, but in his act as stimulus to immediate action. And there is
a consideration here involved of the utmost importance as to practical
judgments of the moral type: The more completely the notion of the
model is formed outside and irrespective of the specific conditions
which the situation of action presents, the less intelligent is the
act. Most men might have their ideals of the model changed somewhat in
the face of the actual offering, even in the case of buying clothes.
The man who is not accessible to such change in the case of moral
situations has ceased to be a moral agent and become a reacting
machine. In short, the standard of valuation is formed in the process
of practical judgment or valuation. It is not something taken from
outside and applied within it--such application means there is no
judgment.