oa Anachronistische waarden

Anachronistic values

A value becomes anachronistic when it no longer fits current historical conditions (institutions, technology, culture, etc.). From an ‘idealist’ perspective, this fact does not tell against the old value (accepted as true), but rather against the new conditions. However, from a ‘naturalist’ perspective which takes values to be the product of human interests and (therefore) as interconnected with a given historical context, such a conflict seems to make a value obsolete. But this is neither an empirical law nor a normative rule. A defence of anachronistic values might still be perfectly reasonable. It is argued that such reasonableness depends mainly on three criteria: (un)certainty, scope and weight.