axiology

Axiology is the branch of philosophy that studies value and value judgments. It asks what is valuable, how values are constituted, and how evaluative claims are warranted. Values studied include moral value, aesthetic value, epistemic value, and other kinds such as economic or prudential value.

The field is often divided into value theory, which covers normative evaluation in ethics and aesthetics, and metaaxiology, which investigates the status and grounds of value judgments. Value theory asks how to determine what is good, right, beautiful, or valuable; metaaxiology asks what grounds such judgments and whether values exist independently of minds. The study also examines the criteria and methods people use to assess value across different domains.

Key concepts include intrinsic value (valuable in itself) versus instrumental value (valuable as a means to an end), value pluralism (the view that there are many distinct kinds of value) versus monism, and debates over moral realism and anti-realism. The field explores how social, cultural, and personal factors influence evaluative standards and how values are applied in practical contexts, including law, education, and public policy.

Historically, axiology has roots in ancient philosophy, with developments in Aristotle’s teleology and later ethical and aesthetic theory. In modern times, figures such as Kant and Moore contributed significant arguments about the nature of value, including the status of moral worth and intrinsic value. Today axiology informs ethics, aesthetics, political theory, and applied disciplines, and it intersects with metaethics and the philosophy of value, remaining a central yet contested area of philosophical inquiry.