Inclusionism Core
Value
Value is the significance, utility, meaning, capability, opportunity, or transformation that emerges through interactions among agents, systems, and environments.
This page presents the Inclusionism canon's treatment of Value. Inclusionism was developed by James Felton Keith and is published with the Keith Institute.
Definition
Value is the significance, utility, meaning, capability, opportunity, or transformation that emerges through interactions among agents, systems, and environments.
Inclusionist Perspective
Value is not solely individual or collective.
Value emerges relationally.
Interactions create new forms of value that did not exist prior to the interaction itself.
Core Principle
Existence possesses intrinsic value.
Interaction reveals, transforms, amplifies, and redistributes value.
Relational Value Emergence
The fact that value emerges through relationships does not eliminate individual contribution.
Instead, it creates a need for increasingly sophisticated methods of understanding how value emerged and how contributions should be recognized.
Value therefore requires Relational Attribution.
Without attribution, value can be generated by one set of agents while being owned, interpreted, or governed by another.
This is one pathway through which Value Distribution becomes illegitimate.
Value also emerges through interpretation. An interaction can create meaning, trust, stigma, opportunity, or exclusion through the ways participants and observers understand it. Contextual Legitimacy and Relational Interpretation distinguishes these consequential interpretations from the evidence needed to judge what occurred.
Forms of Value
Economic Value
Informational Value
Social Value
Cultural Value
Political Value
Emotional Value
Civilizational Value
Inclusionist Perspective
Civilizations become more legitimate as they improve their ability to recognize, attribute, and distribute value generated through interaction.