Toward a Theory of Value
Abstract
This paper proposes a theory of value grounded not in utility, preference, biological signaling, or institutional decree, but in authorship—the durable inscription of will into reality. Art, labor, money, and moral action are treated as artifacts that testify to volitional commitment. Value arises where will is expressed through irreversible cost and preserved against erasure. Reductionist theories that collapse value into subjective preference, evolutionary fitness, or social coordination are shown to be incomplete. By introducing a volitional axis irreducible to impulse or optimization, this framework unifies aesthetic, economic, and moral value while clarifying the limits of human indelibility and the unique role of divine action.
I. The Problem of Value
Value is one of the most persistently theorized and least resolved concepts in philosophy and economics. Competing accounts reduce value to:
- Subjective preference (utilitarian and marginalist traditions)
- Social signaling (sociological and evolutionary accounts)
- Labor input (classical political economy)
- Institutional enforcement (legal and monetary systems)
Each captures a fragment of reality while failing to explain why value persists even when utility is absent, preference is unknowable, signaling is irrelevant, or institutions collapse.
The central question is not how value is exchanged, but why value is recognized at all.
II. Reductionist Accounts and Their Limits
A. Subjective Utility
Utility-based theories claim value is determined by individual preference. Yet preference cannot explain:
- Why forgery provokes moral outrage even when indistinguishable
- Why anonymous or unrecognized work retains value
- Why sacrifice commands respect even when inefficient
Preference describes consumption, not origin.
B. Biological and Social Signaling
Evolutionary accounts reduce value—especially aesthetic value—to sexual fitness signaling. This explains some social behaviors but fails in cases where:
- Art is created without audience
- Value is attributed posthumously
- Authorship matters more than visibility
Signaling is a use of value, not its foundation.
C. Labor as Quantity
Classical labor theories identify time and effort as sources of value, but without explaining why labor matters beyond production output. Labor becomes mechanical rather than authored.
Labor without authorship becomes interchangeable.
III. Art as the Revealing Case
Art exposes the structure of value most clearly.
The value of art is not reducible to materials, function, or even audience reaction. It derives from the recognition that:
- A will chose
- A will risked
- A will persisted
- A will completed
The artifact matters because it preserves authored intention.
Forgery destroys value not by reducing utility, but by falsifying authorship. The moral reaction to forgery reveals that value tracks who authored, not merely what exists.
IV. Volition as an Irreducible Axis
To explain this, a triadic ontology is required:
- Somatic Axis – impulse, instinct, affect
- Intellectual Axis – cognition, symbol, calculation
- Volitional Axis – will, choice, commitment, authorship
Value cannot be grounded in the first two alone.
- Impulse explains desire, not responsibility
- Intellect explains representation, not commitment
Volition alone explains why authorship matters.
Value arises when a will:
- Could have chosen otherwise
- Accepted cost
- Inscribed that choice into reality
V. Value as Preserved Will
This leads to a general definition:
Value is the durable witness of authored will preserved against erasure.
Several implications follow:
- Cost matters because it constrains will
- Time matters because it cannot be recovered
- Sacrifice matters because it excludes alternatives
Where will is not constrained, value is suspect.
VI. Money as a Test Case
Money makes value legible across strangers and time.
Historically, money retained value insofar as it preserved evidence of past sacrifice (commodity money, scarce coinage). As systems shifted toward promises and debt, value became dependent on trust and enforcement rather than testimony.
Inflation, debasement, and rollover debt erode value by severing the link between the circulating claim and the original sacrifice.
Systems that allow claims to persist without corresponding cost ultimately collapse—not because belief fails, but because authorship is falsified.
VII. Proof-of-Work and the Memory of Sacrifice
Proof-of-work systems reintroduce authorship at the protocol level.
They ensure that:
- Energy was irreversibly expended
- The past cannot be rewritten without re-performing the sacrifice
- Ownership is provable without appeal to authority
Here, value does not depend on trust or decree, but on thermodynamic constraint.
This is not moral value, but it is truth-preserving structure.
VIII. The Limit of Human Indelibility
Despite these advances, human systems cannot achieve true indelibility.
Entropy guarantees eventual decay.
Records can be lost.
Civilizations can end.
At best, human systems can approach indelibility within the span of collective memory and continuity.
This boundary clarifies a theological distinction.
IX. Divine Authorship and True Indelibility
In Christian sacramental theology, baptism confers an indelible mark placed by God alone.
This mark:
- Is not earned
- Is not reversible
- Is not subject to entropy
This reveals that true indelibility exceeds human capacity.
Human value systems can preserve memory of will.
Divine action alone can preserve will eternally.
The distinction prevents both technological idolatry and nihilism.
X. Conclusion
Value is not arbitrary.
Nor is it purely subjective.
Nor is it reducible to biology or law.
Value emerges where:
- Will is freely exercised
- Cost is irreversibly paid
- Authorship is preserved against falsification
Art reveals this first.
Labor confirms it.
Money tests it.
Entropy limits it.
Divine action transcends it.
A theory of value grounded in authorship explains why forgery is evil, why sacrifice commands respect, why trust eventually fails, and why systems that forget work destroy themselves.
Value is not what we want.
Value is what we are willing to bind ourselves to in reality—and leave behind as testimony.