ABSTRACT
A likely place to begin an inquiry into justification procedures is with the general theory of value. To justify moral judgments inevitably face questions about values, no matter whether those judgments concern right, wrong, duty, obligation or moral character. The usual approach has been to go directly to the question of meaning, either the meaning of 'ethical terms' or the meaning of whole utterances in value discourse. In short, what is proposed is a direct approach to description of the activities philosophers would be prepared to call 'valuations'. One wants to keep open the possibility that there is more than one type of valuation. The uses may be wholly or in part mistaken, but their mere existence demands comment from a philosophical account of valuation. Moral and aesthetic arguments persist, and they are not always thought to be in vain. The description will have to account for or dispose of the contention that, there is no disputing taste.
