https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtmQv3O7T8

Podcast audio:

It is common to think of values as things we “discover” about ourselves — pre-packaged preferences waiting somewhere deep inside. We speak, for example, of “discovering our passion” or of finally realizing “what we were meant to do,” as if these priorities had been there all along. On this view, valuing is automatic: we simply respond to our needs, desires, or emotions.

In his 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference talk, titled “Conceiving Values,” Gregory Salmieri offers a different account. Drawing on Ayn Rand’s distinctive view, he argues that valuing is not passive or instinctive. It is an active, cognitive achievement — something we must choose, learn, and practice.

Values, Salmieri explains, are goals within an ongoing process of self-sustaining action. Other organisms act to preserve themselves, but only human beings can conceptually identify and plan out their values.

To concretize this process, Salmieri turns to the work of creators.  An architect does not discover their buildings ready-made in the world; a novelist does not stumble upon finished stories; each must actively conceive a guiding idea and gradually give it concrete form. Likewise, valuing involves choosing long-range commitments that give direction to one’s actions and define the course of one’s life.

Topics covered in Salmieri’s talk include:

Conventional view of values vs. Objectivism’s;

Values and life;

Conceptual values in human beings;

Knowledge and goals in valuing;

Q&A.

This talk was recorded live on July 5th in Boston, MA, as part of the 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference, and is available on The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast stream.  Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.