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The concept can also be understood in a descriptive, stipulative, or revisionary sense. So called "social scientists," for instance, might do a study to find out what people in fact value, or more generally, how they might define value. To think that what people value determines what makes something valuable is to be a conventionalist about value. One could simply stipulate a definition of value, instead. So, for instance, in economic theory value is often defined as "willingness to pay," despite the fact that few people actually assent to such a definition, or even exhibit such an understanding of value in their lives. Game theorists often define value in terms of desire, again contrary to ordinary value practice.
A revisionist sense of value will try to take value practice as a starting point and revise the conception where this is rationally defensible to do. There is generally thought to be a fundamental distinction in values between something being valuable as an end, or intrinsically, and something being valuable as a means, or extrinsically. The general idea here is that I might say that I value my happiness for its own sake, but I value having a good job as a means to my happiness.
Some thinkers believe that the notion of intrinsic value, or being valuable as an end, is connected to ethical action. So, consequentialists, for instance, who define acting rightly or wrongly in terms of the amount of value brought about as a consequence of those actions provide an example of this. Even nonconsequentialists though think that intrinsic value is somehow connected to ethical action. The term "value" may also be used in specific stipulative senses in various disciplines. Below are some exampes of this as well as an explanation of the some of the ways the substantive sense of "values" is used...
In marketing, the value of a product is the consumer's expectations of product quality in relation to the actual amount paid for it. It is often expressed as the equation:
In neoclassical economics, the value of an object or service is often seen as nothing but the price it would bring in an open and competitive market. This is determined primarily by the demand for the object relative to supply. Other economists often simply equate the value of a commodity with its price, whether or not the market is competitive.
In classical economics, price and value were not seen as equal. In this tradition, to Steve Keen "value" refers to "the innate worth of a commodity, which determines the normal ('equilibrium') ratio a which two commodities exchange." (Debunking Economics, p. 271,
In another classical tradition, Marx distinguished between the "value in use" ( use-value, what a commodity provides to its buyer), "value" (the socially-necessary labour time it embodies), and " exchange value" (how much labor-time the sale of the commodity can claim, Smith's "labor commanded" value). By most interpretations of his labor theory of value, Marx, like Ricardo, developed a "labor theory of price" where the point of analyzing value was to allow the calculation of relative prices. Others see values as part of his sociopolitical interpretation and critique of capitalism and other societies, and deny that it was intended to serve as a category of economics.
See also: Anthropological theories of valueAnthropological theories of value attempt to expand on the traditional theories of value used by economists or ethicists. They are often broader in scope than the theories of value of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, etc. usually in and fair valueDefinition Fair value also called fair price is a concept used in finance and economics. It is considered by supporters to be a rational and unbiased estimate of the potential market price of a good, a service, a financial asset, etc. taking into account for more general discussions of economic value.