Introduction—The Initial Puzzle

Abstract

Both social scientists and ordinary people share a number of assumptions about values. For both, values are an essentializing concept. To say “Robert does not value honesty” is to claim that Robert lacks something deep and important which influences how he acts and feels. But if we just say that Robert tells lies, we are not necessarily making a deep attribution; it may be that Robert tells lies because he is an undercover FBI agent or because he is unusually tactful. Robert’s lies may be explained by his role or his conduct under certain conditions; Robert’s failure to value honesty, on the other hand, says something much more profound about him as a person.