Does every thing have value?

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Does every thing have value? And, how to prove the answer?

Here, “thing” refers to any entity, such as a chair, a person, a dog and a flower.
 
zhoudu said:
Does every thing have value? And, how to prove the answer?

Here, “thing” refers to any entity, such as a chair, a person, a dog and a flower.
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I’m racking my brains to think of something that doesn’t have value (the best I could come up with was ‘art’ but even that has some utility because it gives people pleasure and is a focus of aesthetic judgement) so yes I guess everything does have value. Some things fall short of their intended purpose, such as say Esperanto, but I’d say it still has intrinsic, potential value. Maybe it will be due for a resurgence tomorrow, who knows?
 
It depends how you define value.

Is value something that is objective, in that it exists independetly of the observer, or is value subjective, in that each person may attach a different value to every object, and indeed zero value to some.
 
Define value.

Edit: previous poster beat me to it.
 
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I suppose the strictly Christian answer would be that if something exists it must have a value of some kind or God wouldn’t have provided the circumstances for it to flourish.

Philosophically, though, does everything in the material world have value? And by this I would add, does it have a useful purpose? So, as you said, chairs, dogs, flowers, etc. All of these have value for someone at some time. So the easy answer is yes.
 
CelticWarlord said:
I suppose the strictly Christian answer would be that if something exists it must have a value of some kind or God wouldn’t have provided the circumstances for it to flourish.
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If god provided something, it is fair to infer that it serves some purpose in his plan. But is purpose the same as value?

Or does value come from an observer recognizing the purpose?

Our restricted knowledge and understanding of the universe and of God’s intent with it prevents us from fully understanding the purpose of every object in it.

Or are we maybe talking about the value of an object, not in the eyes of man but in the eyes of God?

And if so, what does value mean in the eyes of God? Surely, being all-powerful, he could create any new object in any place and at any time. Value has something to do with the cost or difficulty (or impossibility) of replacing an object should it be lost. Does that mean that no inanimate object has value in God’s eyes?
 
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Is value something that is objective, in that it exists independetly of the observer, or is value subjective, in that each person may attach a different value to every object, and indeed zero value to some.
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It is difficult for me to define value. But, what I mean by “value” is something objective, not something subjective.
 
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Everything has potential supernatural value, if it is put toward the good of man, and done out of love for God, primarily.

St Josemaria spoke about “giving back to the material world” the originally intended ended value that God had in mind.

He spoke that it’s our job to give the material world the “vibration of eternity”.

Cleaning a baby’s diaper can be given infinite supernatural value.
 
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So, as you said, chairs, dogs, flowers, etc. All of these have value for someone at some time. So the easy answer is yes.
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Thank you for your reply!

Do you mean that a thing has value if it “helps” something? That is what I firstly thought. But it seems to be problematic. If a thing has value because it helps something (for example, a person has value because he/she helps another person or contributes to the society), then it seems that the “something” must have value at first. Because, if A helps B but B doesn’t have value, then how can this make A have value? However, if A has value because A helps B and also B has value, then what makes B have value? B may have value because B helps C and also C has value. But again, what makes C have value? This will be an infinite chain, which seems to be problematic. So, it seems that at least some thing must have value because of itself, not because of its relationship with other things (that it “helps” other things), or otherwise perhaps nothing have value. But, does anything have value because of itself? If so, how to prove it?
 
Economically speaking, anything you will pay for has value because you’re willing to pay for it. Anything you can sell to someone else who’s willing to pay for it has value because they are willing to pay for it. There are, however, situations where neither you nor anyone else is willing to buy something. The IRS has a mechanism to dispose of “worthless assets”. Do they still have “value”? I guess they might. The question is, to whom?
 
zhoudu said:
Do you mean that a thing has value if it “helps” something? That is what I firstly thought. But it seems to be problematic. If a thing has value because it helps something (for example, a person has value because he/she helps another person or contributes to the society), then it seems that the “something” must have value at first. Because, if A helps B but B doesn’t have value, then how can this make A have value? However, if A has value because A helps B and also B has value, then what makes B have value? B may have value because B helps C and also C has value. But again, what makes C have value? This will be an infinite chain, which seems to be problematic. So, it seems that at least some thing must have value because of itself, not because of its relationship with other things (that it “helps” other things), or otherwise perhaps nothing have value. But, does anything have value because of itself? If so, how to prove it?
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I think it is important here to distinguish between the value of inaninmate objects, and that of people.

All people have value and God wants them to join him in Paradise. That is a goal in itself, and any inanimate object that serves to further that purpose, thus has a contributory value. For example the sandwich you eat, because if you don’t eat, you can’t do the good in the world that God wants you to do. Anything that contributed to the making of that sandwhich thus also has a value and so on all the way down the chain to indivdual atoms and causes.
 
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Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
Economically speaking, anything you will pay for has value because you’re willing to pay for it. Anything you can sell to someone else who’s willing to pay for it has value because they are willing to pay for it. There are, however, situations where neither you nor anyone else is willing to buy something. The IRS has a mechanism to dispose of “worthless assets”. Do they still have “value”? I guess they might. The question is, to whom?
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Trade only works because there is subjective value.

So maybe to you an object is worth 5 dollars but to somebody else it is worth 20 dollars. You agree to sell it to them for 10 dollars and this way you have earned 5 dollars more than it’s worth (to you) and they have bought it 10 dollars cheaper than it’s worth to them, so both of you have got richer through the transaction and are happy with the deal. In fact between you, you are now 15 dollars richer.

That in a nutshell is how capitalism works. If everything had the same value to everbody, nobody could make a profit without somebody else incurring a loss. Trade would thus be unjust, which obviously it isn’t. Thus in economics it’s the subjective value that counts, not the objective.

But the OP specified they are not asking about subjective value but about objective value.
 
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Cirdan_XII said:
value of an object, not in the eyes of man but in the eyes of God?
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I like to take the whole issue to the sub-molecular level. Since everything in the material world is really nothing more than vibrating energy, then that energy can all be traced back to a Source and exists within laws and dynamics of that Source. Some schools of thought have it that all this energy is conscious, and if this is so then God can be said to have interaction with it all at every moment. The value, then, is not necessarily going to be apparent to any one of us in the physical world.

This is why, as kooky as this is going to sound, I thank pretty much everything I throw away for the purpose it served. Dry pens, waste paper, a spent laser cartridge. “Thanks for being with me”, I’ll say (usually not out loud) lol
 
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Please see my answer to the poster above. That’s about as far as I can stretch my feeble mind. 🙂
 
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Even among things that have value – for some things, the value is de minimus.
 
Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
Does evil have value? Satan?
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Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
Economically speaking, anything you will pay for has value because you’re willing to pay for it. Anything you can sell to someone else who’s willing to pay for it has value because they are willing to pay for it
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Using your definition of value means that evil does have value because people are willing to pay for evils like pornography, contraception, abortion and other things that are evil.
 
Those quotes are from twodifferent thoughts.

One is:does evil have value (akin to what OP was asking).

Two is with respect to placing value in an economic construct.
 
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