What is 'objective' value?

[bennyboy]

Let's spin it this way.  You hand a homeless man $100 bill.  In that same day you hand Donald Trump $100 bill.  Who values it more?  Donald Trump could use it for toilet paper and not care, where the homeless man may be able to eat for month.  Does the value of that bill change depending on who is using it?  It has objective value of $100 placed on it by the U.S. Government.  So you could argue that the homeless man subjectively places higher value to a $100 bill than Donald trump does, but objectively it's true value never changed.

It's not surprising that a Christian would frame objective reality in this way. From the perspective of both Trump and the homeless man, the money has an objective value: whatever is mathematically purchaseable with the $100 bill. However, it is objective only from their perspective: ultimately, members of the society arbitrarily established value, or at least the means of calculating value, of this piece of paper. In other words, the government is God with respect to either of them: an arbitrator whose designs are not known.

I think if you are looking at the values AS EXPERIENCED OR VIEWED by human agents, almost everything is objective: the economic values of milk, gas and hookers are all beyond my control. They are a part of my environment, and have spun into existence outside my knowledge or intent.

But ultimately the value of ALL these things is subjective. The things themselves still have no value except that imbued by a 3rd party.