Values in practice
How do values gain influence beyond their proclamation, and what happens to their meanings as they enter institutional practice?
The School of Values
The School of Values examines values as they are practiced, where principles encounter the complexity of reality and the consequences of choice. How do values influence institutional decisions and the paths societies take? Why do experiences grounded in similar principles lead to different outcomes?
It is not a new list of virtues or another appeal to uphold them. It is an independent research project examining how values acquire practical force within institutions and shape decisions, historical trajectories and social outcomes.
The project begins from the distance between the values institutions proclaim and the choices they make in practice.
My book, The Theory of Value Pathways, is a completed manuscript that presents the project’s first foundational formulation, combining conceptual development with comparisons across historical cases. I offer it as a contribution open to scrutiny and criticism, whose value rests on what it helps explain and how it stands up to evidence and objections.
The manuscript is not currently available to read or download. The essays published on this website offer an introduction to earlier stages of my intellectual journey and its questions.
Questions the project explores
Competing values
How can we understand choices shaped by values we hold together, yet which point us in different directions?
Learning and reassessment
What helps societies and institutions learn from their mistakes, and what obstructs their capacity to reassess their course?
WHERE TO BEGIN
Essays from the intellectual journey
These essays predate the project’s current formulation and are presented in their historical context, with positions open to reconsideration. They offer an introduction to my questions about change and historical interpretation, rather than a systematic account of the theory.
When Good Principles Are Not Enough
Who deserves mercy? An essay on the boundaries of protection in the name of values.
Who Defines the Condition?
On authority that can be obeyed without being sanctified, and who defines the conditions of obedience.
Who Carries Your Error?
Why do we ask others to relieve us of the burden of judgment?
The Recognition That Changes Nothing
When does acknowledging an error become a substitute for correcting it?
Research conversations
I welcome discussion with researchers and readers interested in values, institutions and societies’ capacity to reassess their experiences. A specific question or objection is a useful place to begin.
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