The concept of value is often used in a moral, social, economic, aesthetic and religious context. Value is a quality or idea which is cultivated and experienced on a personal and social level. It is something which interests, attracts and influences people as regards their individual needs, interpersonal relations and everyday life. In the social sciences, particularly in sociology, which wishes to function as a non-evaluative science, values are treated as ‘empirical variables’ of social life. Their validity here depends not on their truth or rectitude but on their reception as true and correct on the part of the people who accept them. The notion of value is often used in theology, as well, though here a particular conundrum arises, ...
