Six Types of Value and Their Interrelations in Aristotle

Six types of value have important interrelated roles in Aristotle’s practical and theoretical philosophy. The six are: value expressed in terms of goodness (agathonic value), that expressed in terms of happiness (eudaimonic value), that expressed in terms of pleasure (hedonic value), that expressed in terms of the noble (kalonic value), that expressed in terms of aptness, and that expressed in intrinsic terms (intrinsic value). In the present paper the nature of these types of value and of their interrelations are explored and explained. The central importance of hedonic value to the other sorts of value is shown, and hedonic value is explained in terms of aptness value, which stems from the relation between a mode of cognition or perception and its object. Intuitively put, an object (O) has the highest aptness value when the active cognition or perception of O is identical to O. Identity, as we might put it, is the maximum of aptness.