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General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 499
fundamental duality which recurs everywhere,28 namely that of values of finality
(or instrumental values, i.e. means and ends) and values of yield (costs and
benefits) which are inseparable but clearly distinct from one another. In the
individual sphere this distinction is based on the double meaning of the word
interest. On the one hand all behaviour is dictated by interest in the general
qualitative sense, in that it pursues an end which has value because it is desired,
and this end can be entirely disinterested (in the second meaning of the term)
although it is of great interest in the first sense. On the other hand interest is an
energy adjustment which releases the available forces (Claparkde and Janet),
that is to say increases the yield, and from this second point of view a behaviour
is called ‘interested’ if it is intended to increase the yields from the viewpoint of
the subject’s ego. By playing on these two meanings of the term while refusing
to distinguish between them, utilitarianism sought to explain altruism by
selfishness under the pretext that all behaviour is interested - which is false
since behaviour is always directed by interest in the first meaning of the term
and can therefore be, as we have just shown, disinterested and interesting at
the same time. This sophism is sufficient in itself to justify the two types of
values. Furthermore, when Janet explains sympathy and antipathy in terms of
values of yield he is right in a large number of cases, e.g. when one chooses a
travelling or table companion, but it is possible to love an extremely tiring
person, and one does not always marry a woman for the sole reason that she
is ‘economical’ in the sense that she wil not prove very wearying. We may even
consider that ‘investments’ of affective charges which occur in love are a function
of a common scale of values, of twin production projects in the broadest
sense and even of values which are highly disinterested although they involve
interest (in the other sense of the term) to an exceptional degree.
I I. Classification of values
The gist of the foregoing is that praxeology is everywhere, but nowhere by
itself. It is impossible to accomplish a moral act or to perform a logical opera-
tion without expenditure of energy, which is a matter of values of yield, whereas
the behaviours studied by economic science may have no matter what intrinsic
finality and whereas concepts of production and consumption are necessarily
related to structures accompanied by their own values or finalities. It is there-
fore evident that all the sciences of man lead to the search for a classification of
values.
I. One must first justify the first dichotomy suggested by the psychology of
affectivity, which recurs everywhere. Values of finality, or instrumental values,
bring together those which are by their very quality related to structures, in
other words which correspond to the needs of qualitatively differentiated ele-
ments, with a view to the production or conservation of structures. That is not
to say that values and structures are identical; a structure exists on the strength
of its own laws, which can be described in terms of algebra (including logic)
or topology without reference to speeds, forces or energies as working capacities ;