Value judgment

A value judgment is a judgment about whether something or someone is right or wrong, good or bad, useful or useless, based on what we think it ought to be rather than only on what the facts show. It contrasts with a factual judgment, which describes how things are: "prices have risen" is a factual judgment, while "the government should improve access to education" is a value judgment, since it presupposes that education is a good.

The term is closely tied to the distinction between facts and values that became central in modern philosophy, according to which science describes the world while morality and politics evaluate it. This separation strongly shaped the social sciences in the twentieth century, where the ideal of the value-neutral researcher was widely defended. Leo Strauss found this division doubtful, arguing that a student of politics cannot observe it from outside, as if he had no view of what is just or expedient. Other thinkers have gone further and held that even facts are always described through concepts and priorities that already carry valuations.

In Protestant theology, Albrecht Ritschl used the notion to explain that faith does not arise from demonstrable facts but from judgments that assess things according to their relevance for our moral and spiritual well-being. In law and practical reasoning, Chaïm Perelman stressed that many decisions depend on valuations that formal logic cannot fully prove, a point that led to a broader study of rational argument in areas where there is no single correct answer.

The phrase can be used positively, to remind us that some decisions require weighing a system of values, or disparagingly, to point to an opinion formed on whim or without evidence. At its best, making a value judgment means reflecting carefully, checking one's view against public evidence, and being willing to revise it when the available information changes.