“The Relativity of Fact and the Objectivity of Value,” by Catherine Elgin was included in Space of Love and Garbage, an essay collection edited by Samuel Phineas Upham. Catherine Z. Elgin is Professor of the Philosophy of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has taught philosophy at Princeton, Dartmouth, MIT, and Wellesley. Her scholarly work focuses on issues of epistemology, philosophy of art, and philosophy of science. She is the author of Considered Judgment, Between the Absolute and the Arbitrary, and With Reference to Reference, and co-author (with Nelson Goodman) of Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences.

Here is the bio (above) from the essay and a quotation of my favorite paragraphs of the essay (below).

Fact and value purport to be polar opposites: facts being absolute, material, objective, and impersonal; values relative, spiritual, subjective, and personal; facts being verifiable by the rigorous, austere methods of science; values being subject to no such assessment. The facts, they say, don’t lie. So every factual disagreement has a determinate resolution. Whether barium is heavier than plutonium is a question of fact; and whatever the answer, there are no two ways about it. Values, if they don’t precisely lie, are thought perhaps to distort. So evaluative disputes may be genuinely irresolvable. Whether, for example, a Van Gogh is better than a Vermeer might just be a matter of opinion. And on matters like these, everyone is entitled to his own opinion. Such is the prevailing stereotype.

Samuel Phineas Upham is a writer, investor and philosopher from NYC. Visit Samuel Phineas Upham website for more details.

You can also buy this book on Amazon: Space of Love & Garbage by Samuel Phineas Upham