# The Value of Persons: A Pragmatic Approach

Nathalie Heinich

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Nathalie Heinich. The Value of Persons: A Pragmatic Approach. Theory, Culture and Society, 2025, 43 (1). hal-05536955

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Nathalie HEINICH

# The Value of Persons: A Pragmatic Approach

## Abstract

Valuating persons is a familiar activity, one that we all perform on a daily basis in relation to our loved ones, colleagues, neighbors, representatives, celebrities or even fictional characters. Yet, despite its familiarity, the issue of valuating persons has hardly ever been addressed by the social sciences in a pragmatic and comprehensive perspective. As any kind of valuations, those centered on individuals align with implicit rules that make them more or less effective or credible. Those rules belong to an “axiological grammar” rendering explicit a wide range of worth proofs (from status to talent, physical appearance or deeds), the decisive role of evaluation "tests" (exams, competitions, public performances...) and, finally, the inevitable designing of hierarchies, through comparison, which put the value of equality to the test. Proofs, tests and hierarchies are the major stages in the ordinary production of inequalities through the valuation of persons.

## Key words

hierarchies – inequalities – persons – pragmatic sociology – values – valuation –

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Hiring a co-worker, grading a student, assessing the damage of relatives of an accident victim, delivering a eulogy, commenting on a soccer game, discussing the merits of an actor, selecting guests for a dinner party, applauding a singer, awarding the prize in a beauty pageant, crowning a champion, saluting the memory of a martyr, admiring an artist, bowing to the authority of a boss, enthusing over a hero... These are all eminently familiar operations, which have in common the fact that they are based on the valuation of a person. But have the social sciences in actuality taken any interest in such operations, so as to highlight the formal conditions under which
they are carried out and achieved, the properties on which they are based, the system of values underpinning them, the tests enabling them to be objectified, the hierarchies they help to construct, and the conditions of their acceptance?

In fact, while valuating persons is a fundamental aspect of social life, the social sciences have seldom explored the topic. Indeed the status of persons has been addressed by Ian Hacking through the lenses of categorization, but the scientific classification of people, which is at stake in his “Making up persons”, is quite different from the issue of ordinary valuations (Hacking, Ian, 2007). Besides the issue of *values* has been addressed by sociology, through the well-known statistical surveys initiated by Milton Rokeach (Rokeach, Milton, 1973) and followed up by Ronald Inglehart in the United States (Inglehart, Ronald, 1977) or, in other countries, by Schwartz and Bilsky (Schwartz, Shalom & Bilsky, Wolfgang, 1987) or by Olivier Galland and Bernard Roudet (Galland, Olivier & Roudet, Bernard, 2005). Yet *valuations*, in Dewey’s pragmatic perspective (Dewey, John, 1939), have only recently entered the field of social sciences (Muniesa, Fabian, 2011; Lamont, Michèle, 2012), as demonstrated by the creation in 2013 of the international journal *Valuation Studies*.

Michèle Lamont’s important investigations on “symbolic boundaries” (Lamont, Michèle, 1992) have been pioneering in the study of the valuation of persons, but without taking account of the pragmatic context in which such valuations are implemented. This pragmatic perspective is, on the contrary, quite present in a number of sociological investigations inspired by Bruno Latour (Latour, Bruno, 1992, 1993), but they are more often focused on the evaluation of things or actions rather than of the very persons, as for example in Antoine Hennion’s sociology of attachment to things, including art works (Hennion, Antoine, 2013). The French post-bourdieusien pragmatic trend, also includes Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s important attempt to describe the set of "justifications of actions" that actors can mobilize (Boltanski, Luc & Thévenot, Laurent, 1991), as well as Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre analysis of some innovative ways of valorizing things
(Boltanski, Luc & Esquerre, Arnaud, 2015). But the valuation of persons remains at the margins of those new sociological advances, or simply ignored.

This is the reason why there remains much room for a close description and in-depth analysis of the various ways whereby actors do valuate not things, actions or abstract entities but *persons*, of the constraints those valuations face, of the "felicity conditions" (Austin, John, 1962) of such acts and their effects on interactions and hierarchies. This article will briefly sketch the main theoretical steps of such an endeavor, without trying to unpack them: the pragmatic approach to valuation, the specificity of its focus on persons, the forms and contents of the valuation of persons, the dichotomy between statutory and personal qualities, the role of affordances and value principles in the valuation process, the importance of tests as felicity conditions, the necessity to deal with the hierarchical tensions that valuation generates, and finally the new light thus projected on the seminal issue of inequality.

## From value to valuation

"Value" may be defined as the result of all valuations (Dewey, John, 1939), i.e. the operations whereby a quality is assigned to an object, along varying degrees of consensus and stability (Author, 2017). These operations depend on three parameters: the nature of the valuated object, the nature of the valuators and the nature of the valuation context. There ensues that, similarly to the operations producing it, value is neither objective, nor subjective, nor arbitrary: it is motivated by the affordances that any object offers to valuation, by the collective representations of the qualities worth being valorized, and by the actual possibilities framed by the contexts where these representations are activated.

Now, this definition concerns only the first meaning of the word « value »: that is to say worth, or « grandeur », according to the word proposed by Boltanski and Thévenot in their book *On Justification* regarding the justification of actions (Boltanski, Luc & Thévenot, Laurent, 1991). However, the word bears two supplementary meanings: the second meaning is that of a « good », something
endowed with « value » according to the first meaning; the third meaning being that of a « principle » according to which valuations are produced – for example the value of beauty, or sincerity, or inspiration, etc. (Author, 2020).

Worth, good, valuation principle: these are thus the three meanings of the word « value ». In other words, any “valuation” process initiates with the application of a valuation principle (third meaning) to any kind of object (a thing, a person, an action, an abstract entity) so that it becomes a good (second meaning) considered as having some worth (first meaning). Hence, pragmatic sociology perspective posits that instead of interrogating what the value of an object is, our task is rather to observe and analyze the various valuation processes, and their outcomes.

## Valuating persons

Now, what if the valuated object is not a thing, according to the standard perspective, but a person? This is the topic addressed in *La Valeur des personnes* (Author, 2022) in the wake of Michèle Lamont’s seminal investigations on the “symbolic boundaries” organizing the valuation of persons along several categories of valuators (Lamont, Michèle, 1992; Lamont, Michèle & Thévenot, Laurent, 2000). The difference between both approaches is but a matter of methods: instead of interviewing people, thus collecting not actual but declared valuation principles, the pragmatic perspective lies on the observation of situated actions (Author, 2017; Lemieux, Cyril, 2017). Owing to this pragmatic approach, value or worth appears to be neither intrinsic to the valuated person, nor arbitrary or purely subjective, since it is the result of all the operations whereby a quality is assigned to a person.

Yet the valuation of persons mobilizes specific tools. In order to analyze them, it appears necessary to depart from the common sense reduction of valuation to pricing, since our (western) culture is reluctant to pricing a person, mostly for moral reasons. However, in the academic field, neoclassical economics provide a variety of approaches to the valuation of persons (Aldy, Joe & Viscusi, Kip, 2003), even if this discipline mostly deals with the valuation of things (Berthoin-Antal, Marianne,
Hutter, Michael & Stark, David, 2015). But let's stick here to ordinary valuations in daily life.

Should moral value be viewed as the pivotal value regarding persons, in lieu of economic value? Not at all, since morality is far from being the single gauge of personal value, even though it is certainly one of the most fundamental. Contrary to moral philosophy, a pragmatic sociology of values ought to consider the importance of many other values than that of morality (Author, 2017). Regarding the justification of actions, Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot identified several “orders of worth”, none of them being reduceable to morals (Boltanski, Luc & Thévenot, Laurent, 1991). But their model has to be expanded once considering not only justification but also valuation processes, and not only when directed to actions but also to persons, to things and to abstract entities. This is why a more encompassing model is to be designed (Author, 2017).

## Forms and contents of the valuation of persons

In any given society, not all individuals are endowed with the same “value”, in the first sense of the term, i.e. the same worth. When it comes to persons, the three basic modes of valuation (measure, attachment, value judgements) take quite a specific place: measuring their value is a marginal operation, whereas it is central in the case of things; attachment is fundamental, through the mobilization of affective values; and value judgements are extremely frequent and diverse but are submitted to strong constraints since they may deeply affect their aim.

Furthermore, the qualities which underpin the value judgements produced with regards to persons, as well as the attachments they provoke, are diverse, and they vary over time and according to social environments. Indeed, intelligence, wealth, kindness, modesty, etc., do not possess the same weightiness depending on the valuators and on the valuation contexts. They, however, contribute to establishing the rank of the said person in a hierarchy. These different qualities are well known and most of them have been addressed by the humanities and social
sciences, but it appears that there is no systematic synthesis of the different categories
of resources likely to sustain the importance given to a person.

Among the three main forms of valuation – i.e. measure, attachment and value
judgement – the former, measuring, is subjected to powerful constraints given the
special status granted to the person in our culture. Besides economic calculations of
the cost of an anonymous human life, it appears that attaching a price tag to a given
human being (e.g. a star footballer) is quite an exceptional operation since the
abolition of slavery, or is submitted to heavy constraints of justification (Schotté,
Manuel, 2022) : what appears legitimate is pricing a service, for example the
availability of a person for a given task, by means of a salary, a fee, etc., in connection
to a contract signed by the various parties.

The contrast between measuring and attachment is conspicuous: attachment is
one of the most well-known forms of valuation regarding persons, be it through love,
care, desire, friendship etc. The contrast is also blatant with value judgement, which
is probably the most common and the most public form of valuation: we spend much
of our time expressing judgements on persons, through opinions, gossip, appraisals
or critiques, assigning « likes » on social media, etc. Thus, the study of valuations
should always take account of their form before considering their content.

Let us now turn to the content of valuations, that is to say, the properties or
qualities attributed to persons – and « qualities » here encompass negative qualities,
or flaws. One method to distinguish between those many qualities is to differentiate
between innate and acquired qualities – following Robert Merton’s distinguishing
ascribed from acquired individual properties (Merton, Robert, 1973). But rather than
elaborating on this point, let us insist on a second difference between two main
categories of qualities, which is of utmost importance: the difference between
statutory qualities and personal qualities.
Statutory qualities depend on a person's belonging to a collective, such as a family, a clan, a party, a religion, a nation, or a category (e.g. the category of Doctors of Philosophy, or of university professors). Personal qualities, on the other side, depend on properties attached to the very body or actions of the person: e.g. physical strength, beauty, charm, courage...

Literature brims with examples of such differences. Let us think of this character in Jane Austen's *The Whatsons* (Austen, Jane, 2003) who confesses to her sister: « I could marry any man with a good temper and sufficient income ». In this candidly cynical statement, the good temper is a personal quality while the sufficient income is a statutory quality. Or else, let us recollect the difference between the « Salon Guermantes » and the « Salon Verdurin » in Marcel Proust's novel (Proust, Marcel, 1954): in the Salon Guermantes, members are recruited on the basis of their statutory quality (their belonging to high aristocracy), while in the Salon Verdurin one is allegedly selected on the basis of one's culture, talent, professional achievements or even charm. And the whole novel tells the socio-historical shift from an axiological world rooted in the past and centered on statutory qualities to a novel axiological world centered on personal qualities.

On a historical level, western societies have evolved from a preference for statutory to that for personal qualities. The case of France is illuminating: before the Revolution the French society was organized according to a small number of « orders » (« société d'ordres ») due to native properties (the family to which one was born) granting privileges, and this situation was considered normal. Following the rise of democracies, personal qualities (e.g. merit) gradually imposed themselves as more significant and valuable than native status qualities. As a result, one is entitled to interpret the evolution of our societies over the last centuries bearing in mind this axiological shift from status to personal merit – even if it mostly remains a matter of representations rather than a matter of actual achievements, as we all know.

Of course the two categories of qualities are not always rigidly separated: they sometimes conflate, since qualities can be either incorporated (e.g.: intelligence), or
objectified (e.g.: books), or institutionalized (e.g : diploma). Thus, we can establish a
continuous typology ranging from totally incorporated to totally institutionalized
qualities: e.g. possessing physical strength vs. being a CEO. And when an
incorporated quality (e.g.: intelligence) becomes institutionalized through a test
granting a diploma it turns into a status – that of a graduate. The threefold
distinction between incorporated, objectified and institutionalized qualities are
borrowed from Pierre Bourdieu's distinction between the three forms of cultural
capital (Bourdieu, Pierre, 1979).

It may be worth opening a parenthesis on Bourdieu's sociology. On a
sociological level, this distinction between statutory and personal qualities is also
crucial to comprehend his « critical sociology » as a systematic attempt at
demonstrating the presence of statutory qualities underpinning personal qualities. In
other words, it is an endeavor to consider status as the reality of social life and the
focus on persons as an illusion or an ideology. Such a conception may uncover
certain realities that are not immediately perceptible (habitus, social
determinations...) but it prevents from observing and understanding the variety of
processes whereby actors shift from one frame to another when they valuate
someone: from statutory qualities (« he's the chief ») to personal qualities (« but he's
also a very nice man »), or from personal qualities (« what a pretty woman! ») to
statutory qualities (« and she's a Sorbonne graduate! »).

Let us consider, therefore, that sociologists should rather understand how
these shifting capacities are implemented according to the contexts and to the objects
of valuation, rather than reducing them to the evidencing of statutory qualities, such
as one's social origin. In this perspective, it becomes possible to understand, amongst
other things, that taste is a perfect clutch, a turning point between status and person,
and vice versa – hence, the importance of taste in our societies. In Proust's novel,
Swann gains his status in high society through his elegance and his taste for art, in
spite of his low status as a Jew. And Madame de Guermantes has to demonstrate on
every occasion that she deserves her high status because of her perfect personal taste.
## From affordances to value principles

Now what are the clues for personal or statutory qualities? On what valuations are they based? How can one prove that they are not arbitrary? American psychologist James Gibson provides an answer with his concept of « affordance », that is to say the objective properties that objects offer to perception, be they things or persons (Gibson, James, 1979)¹. Owing to affordances, criteria and value principles can be applied to an object. Hence values are neither only in valuated objects, nor only in the mind of valuators, but they are implemented at the intersection of affordances and mental representations of worth. This is why the concept of affordance is key to avoiding both objectivism and subjectivism in axiological sociology (Author, 2017).

Here again a typology is necessary to describe the whole spectrum of possible affordances. A well-known category of affordances is the person's *name*, as for the valuation of exceptionally worthy people such as aristocrats and celebrities. Another category is provided by the evidence of wealth through *material properties*, regarding the valuation of owners and collectors. Yet another category of affordances lies in the *appearance* of the *body*, in the case of valuating beautiful people (« Miss Universe ») or athletes. Another category also lies in the *body* but as it offers *dispositions* rather than an appearance, like in the case of valuating saints through their disposition to visions or suffering. Another category is provided by *artistic or scientific works*, which allow valuating genius. Then, there is the category of *actions*, for heroes. And the last category is other people's actions, when it comes to the valuation of charismatic personalities such as leaders (Collins, Randall, 2020).

Following this typology of affordances, one better understands why Joan of Arc is such a famous figure, since she conflated several types of affordances: her leadership skills (charisma), her heroic actions, her bodily disposition to mystic experience and to suffering, and finally her glory once her name gained fame.
The last typology of qualities is that of the value principles mobilized by
valuators. Sixteen « value registers »<sup>ii</sup> have been identified drawing on the analysis of
value judgement in several domains*. The *ethical* register commands the values of
goodness, care, virtue, courage, devotion... The *pure* register commands the values of
authenticity, purity, transparency... The *reputational* register commands the values of
honour, reputation, renown... The *juridical* register commands the values of legality,
respect of the rules... The *civic* register commands the values of dedication to the
common good, respect of the general interest... The *domestic* register commands the
values of attachment to family, respect of elders, proximity... The *affective* register
commands the values of love, friendship, capacity to offer or elicit affection... The
*aithesic* register commands the values of pleasure, seduction, eroticism... The
*aesthetic* register commands the values of beauty, elegance, harmony... The *ludic*
register commands the values of fun, sense of humour, appetency for engaging in
games... The *mystic* register commands the values of spirituality, inspiration,
vocation, faith... The *hermeneutic* register commands the values of signification,
interpretation, signs deciphering ... The *epistemic* register commands the values of
knowledge, scientific truth, intelligence... The *technical* register commands the values
of know-how, talent, ingenuity. The *operational* register commands the values of
efficiency, strength, utility... Eventually, the *economic* register commands the values
of wealth, profit...

Clearly, economics and moral philosophy are far from covering the whole set
of values supporting valuations. One can also notice that valuations may rely on
contradictory values, i.e. on axiological discrepancies: discrepancy between
affordances, discrepancy between qualities, discrepancy between value principles, or
discrepancies between qualification regimes such as the "community regime" as
opposed to the "singularity regime" (Author, 1991). As a matter of fact, one of the
most frequent and strong axiological discrepancies existing in our society contrasts
the ethical register with the aesthetic register, as demonstrated in the emblematic
case of bullfighting (Author, 2017).
*The test of worth: establishing, measuring, exhibiting value*

Now, individual valuation in an ordinary context does not suffice to establish the value of a person in a justifiable, collective, consensual and sustainable way. The sociological perspective must consider the expansion of any phenomenon both in space and in time. Regarding the valuation of persons, such an expansion can be obtained through testing<sup>iii</sup>: a notion which is fundamental in pragmatic sociology, as Cyril Lemieux has demonstrated (Lemieux, Cyril, 2018). Testing offers a way to objectify, stabilize and expand to a collective scale the various valuations of a person. This can be implemented through a whole set of tests, often ritualized, such as competitions, championships, exams, graduations, prize lists, and so on. Hence the valuation of persons ought to be also analyzed regarding the nature, the various forms and the functions of such tests.

"Testing" has two meanings: first, negatively, it references a difficult moment, an ordeal; and second, positively, it is an operation to establish the value of a thing or of someone – ranging from the robustness of a tool to the skills of a medical student. Unfortunately, in English there is only one word for the two meanings: « test ». It is rather a pity since testing has a twofold and contradictory function. On one side, it is a highly disturbing experience, which puts to the test a person's capacities, one's position regarding others, in a way that will probably yield a definitive status, with little possibility to question the result and return to the previous step: think of a scholarly examination, or the defense of your PhD. What's more, it may well be a matter of existential worth (Martuccelli, 2006) or event of life and death: a famous French chef took his own life a few years ago after his restaurant lost one of its stars in the "Guide Michelin".

On the other side, testing offers the possibility to remove uncertainty, to stabilize wavering positions, to provide benchmarks, to avoid having to prove over and over again one's capacities, and to transform potential worth into actual worth.
In other words, it is a manner to pacify our common world. Hence the ambivalence of any test, as it produces both suffering and peace at the same time.

The spectrum of testing can be organized along two main typologies. A first typology revolves around tests' formats, from very formalized tests (such as a trial or, back in the day, a duel) to informal tests (such as attending a social dinner). A second typology concerns the kind of values put to the test in such or such a testing circumstance: ethical values, such as courage; aesthetic values, such as beauty in beauty pageants; epistemic values, such as scientific knowledge in an academic examination; economic values, such as wealth in a potlatch; aisthesic values, such as good taste in a cooking competition; technical values, such as know-how in a craft contest - etc. Some tests also overlap several values, such as the famous « montée des marches » at the Cannes festival or at the Academy Awards, where you have to be elegant and smiling as well as skillful enough not to trip over the red carpet. Some tests even imply contradictory values, for example when you are to pose for photographers during sufficient time in order to obtain maximum exposure (reputational register) while leaving the red carpet swiftly enough so that you do not overshadow the stars following you (ethical register).

Needless to say, the format and content of tests, their consequences, how they are justified or criticized, vary across time and space: here lies a rich field of research for future sociologists and historians.

## *Worth gaps put to the test: managing hierarchical tensions*

A successful valuation – that is to say, a valuation confirmed by a commonly accepted test – inevitably leads to producing worth discrepancies between persons: in other words, “inequalities”, from a critical perspective. Those worth gaps or inequalities are ambivalent: while they are widely accepted they are also likely to create tensions that actors would usually rather avoid. Hence a wide spectrum of behaviors meant to manage those axiological differences, ranging from denying worth to justifying it, from stigmatizing envy to encouraging admiration, from glorifying great
men to practicing charity, etc. Once worth gaps have been identified as an actual
sociological issue, it becomes possible to map out the various techniques used to
mitigate hierarchical tensions produced by valuations.

As long as they are commonly accepted, worth gaps inevitably lead to creating
or reinforcing hierarchy. Or, rather, hierarchies since there exists a plurality of principles
justifying hierarchies. Some of them are well known since they have been studied in
depth by various authors: the hierarchy based on wealth, heritage or income (Marx,
Karl, 1867, 2016), the hierarchy based on consumption (Veblen, 1899), the hierarchy
based on manners or on inclusion (Elias, Norbert, 1969, 1973), the hierarchy based on
distinction (Bourdieu, Pierre, 1979), the hierarchy based on seniority in a residential
area (Elias, Norbert and Scotson, John, 1965), the hierarchy based on sports competence
(Elias, Norbert and Dunning, Eric, 1986). Other types of hierarchies have been more
recently analyzed: the hierarchy based on artistic skills (Author, 2005), the hierarchy
based on celebrity (Marshall, David, 2006), the hierarchy based on visibility (Author,
2012). Other hierarchies may also be emphasized, such as the hierarchy based on
proximity (let us think of selfies with a celebrity) or the hierarchy based on mobility (let
us think of tourism) (Author, 2022).

Critical sociology (or Bourdieusian sociology) mostly lies on the dismissal of
hierarchies, whereas comprehensive sociology observes how actors accept or reject
them, play with them, adjust to them. It also focuses on their efforts to neutralize the
deleterious effects of worth gaps: effort to refrain vanity, by dismissing self-
valorization; effort to control envy (Schoeck, Helmut, 1980, 1995); effort to force
admiration, which is the only antidote of envy. One could even reinterpret Elias's
civilizing process (Elias, Norbert, 1969, 1973) as the growing capacity either to
minimize or to justify worth gaps while interacting with others.

The ordinary production of inequalities

Let's end up with a quick glimpse on some sociological outcomes of such an
issue. Valuating persons may eventually be interpreted as ordinary production of
inequalities, since any valuation involves some comparison: one is more or less good at this or that than another one. Valuations create or confirm worth gaps, but at the level of ordinary interactions rather than at the more general level of « social system », « society », « liberalism » or « patriarchy » often invoked in today's social sciences.

It is all the more important to focus on the valuations of persons that they both produce and record *inequalities* between people, but without generating a feeling of *inequity* – at least when they are successful. Although difference between equality and equity is commonly implemented by actors in actual interactions, it is often ignored or underestimated by social scientists who, for political reasons, tend to focus on equality as the only relevant criteria of justice. Indeed, equality is but one of the five criteria commanding the feeling of equity, together with rank, need, merit and chance (Author, 2022).

No doubt the issue of inequalities is particularly critical today, but once considered at the light of actual valuations of persons it can be addressed according to a totally a-critical manner. Indeed, a comprehensive sociology does not aim at explaining and even less at dismissing, but on the contrary at *making explicit* the relationship that actors have with reality: here, the ordinary practice of valuation and its consequences on the creation or reinforcement of perceived hierarchies. This comprehensive approach does not imply criticism of inequalities, nor their justification: it simply aims at describing and understanding the complex and sometimes contradictory process through which actors use their social life skills in order to both produce perceived hierarchies out of objectified inequalities and to neutralize or minimize them in order to limit their noxious consequences. This is why analyzing the valuation of persons inevitably leads to the opening of the black box of inequalities, but under a quite new light<sup>iv</sup>.

Nathalie HEINICH

[heinich@ehess.fr](mailto:heinich@ehess.fr), 22 Place de la Nation, 75012 Paris
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Biographical note

Nathalie Heinich, a French sociologist, is emeritus researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris). Besides numerous articles in academic journals she published more than fourty books, dealing with the status of artist and the notion of author, contemporary art, identity crisis, the history and epistemology of sociology, and the sociology of valuation. She lectured in many countries inside and outside Europe, and her books have been translated into fifteen languages.

<footnote>i In French the term « prise » has been used to translate « affordance » (Bessy & Chateauraynaud, 1995).</footnote>

<footnote>ii In French: « registres de valeurs » (Author, 2017).</footnote>

<footnote>iii « Épreuve » in French.</footnote>

<footnote>iv Many thanks to Sébastien Le Pipec for his precious linguistic help.</footnote>