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500 Jean Piaget
and this same structure can be desirable and indeed must be so for the subject
to take an interest in it, which then presupposes an intervention of affective
charges or ‘investments’, etc., i.e. of energy. From this second point of view a
further distinction has to be drawn between the choice of elements to be invested
(values of finality) and the quantities involved. Values of yield are then precisely
relative to this quantitative aspect if we admit by definition that a yield is
distinguished from a qualitative result by reason of the quantity produced or
expended (quantity of energy in the case of intra-individual ‘economy’ or tech-
nical production, conventional or accountable quantity in the case of commer-
cial exchanges).
2. Values of finality may give rise to a second dichotomy. Structures to
which these values are attached can be translated by rules which are to a greater
or lesser extent capable of logical expression, or which may remain at the level
of simple regulations. In the former case we may speak of normative values to
the extent that the value is influenced or actually determined by the norm,
whereas in the case of spontaneous and free exchanges we may speak of non-
normative values. As to the former, one may once more wonder whether value
and norm or structure are identical. But, once again, that is not the case since
the norm comprises its (cognitive) structure on the one hand and its value on
the other, the latter being as usual related to affectivity; we have seen (in section
8) that a moral norm is accepted only as a function of specific feelings of respect
which are a valorization of the person issuing instructions or of partners in a
relationship of reciprocity. A legal norm, on the other hand, is valorized only
as a function of an attitude of ‘recognition’ which is the valorization of a
custom or of a trans-personal relationship.
Non-normative values of finality extend to many diverse fields. In the first
place, they grow from individual interests to inter-individual sympathies and
to those in numerable exchanges which make up everyday social life, whether
these be exchanges of information, economically non-quantified services of all
kinds, politics, courtesy, etc. In addition they also include those valorizations
which occur in symbolic expression by means of gestures, clothes, words, etc.,
since systems of symbols or signs include - besides their strictly semeiotic laws -
a body of values which tend to either reinforce or diminish expressivity, as Bally
has shown with regard to what he called ‘affective language’.
3. Lastly, values of yield accompany all the foregoing but give rise to specific
valorizations which express themselves both in the internal energetic praxeology
of action (cf. in section IO the conceptions of P. Janet) and in inter-individual eco-
nomics dealt with by economic science. In both cases it is striking to note the
predominant importance of quantification as compared with the qualitative
nature of values of finality. In other words, as soon as there is a question of
yield, what counts is no longer the quality of the objective judged in relation to
a differentiated need (that need itself expressing either a gap or a momentary
imbalance in a structure which has to be completed or re-balanced), but the
quantum of the result obtained in relation to the expenditure required in order
to obtain it.