I really dislike the phrase “human values”. I think it’s confusing because:
It obscures a distinction between human preferences and normative values, i.e. what the author thinks is good in a moral sense
Insofar as the author thinks that fulfilling human preferences is good, they often leave this unjustified
It’s unclear who the “human” in “human values” is. Is it...
The person using the phrase “human values”
Any particular single individual
Most humans
Certain humans
Humans as they will be in the future, or after “reflection”
It’s often used with an unjustified implicit assumption, like:
Humans will eventually converge on deciding to value to same stuff, provided enough time/intelligence/information
What most/some humans value must be objectively good to pursue
Because they have intuitive access to moral truths, or
Because of an ethical framework that necessitates this like preference utilitarianism
Most humans already value the same stuff
Instead of “human values”, people should either:
Talk about someone’s preferences
Their own preferences
The preferences most / some people share
The preferences they / some / most people would have after reflecting
A special type of subset of those preferences (e.g. preferences that stay consistent across time)
(And be concrete if they are making the empirical claim that people agree/would eventually agree on certain preferences)
Be concrete if they are taking a particular meta-ethical stance
If they think that certain human preferences are morally good to pursue, they should be explicit about this
If they mean to talk about whatever is morally good in the abstract, use “moral goodness” instead of “human values”
Don’t use the phrase “human values”
I really dislike the phrase “human values”. I think it’s confusing because:
It obscures a distinction between human preferences and normative values, i.e. what the author thinks is good in a moral sense
Insofar as the author thinks that fulfilling human preferences is good, they often leave this unjustified
It’s unclear who the “human” in “human values” is. Is it...
The person using the phrase “human values”
Any particular single individual
Most humans
Certain humans
Humans as they will be in the future, or after “reflection”
It’s often used with an unjustified implicit assumption, like:
Humans will eventually converge on deciding to value to same stuff, provided enough time/intelligence/information
What most/some humans value must be objectively good to pursue
Because they have intuitive access to moral truths, or
Because of an ethical framework that necessitates this like preference utilitarianism
Most humans already value the same stuff
Instead of “human values”, people should either:
Talk about someone’s preferences
Their own preferences
The preferences most / some people share
The preferences they / some / most people would have after reflecting
A special type of subset of those preferences (e.g. preferences that stay consistent across time)
(And be concrete if they are making the empirical claim that people agree/would eventually agree on certain preferences)
Be concrete if they are taking a particular meta-ethical stance
If they think that certain human preferences are morally good to pursue, they should be explicit about this
If they mean to talk about whatever is morally good in the abstract, use “moral goodness” instead of “human values”