All values are personal and voluntary. A third-party can’t decide for you what to value. Nor can they force their values on you. Many people differ in what they prefer. Even under the same conditions, a human may have different values at different times. They don’t always react the same way under the same conditions as stones do. Many draw their values from their social environment, but that doesn’t mean they are eternal values.
All schemes are based on impersonal and non-voluntary values. The scheme must be put in place based on a certain set of values, its supporters’ values. It must be impersonal. The actions are not undertaken freely—otherwise the scheme wouldn’t be needed—so it must be non-voluntary. I use the word “non-voluntary” because they are not “involuntary.” A sneeze is involuntary. I don’t speak of involuntary action similar to this.
It’s futile to argue whether a certain action is true or false. We would have to establish and ultimate judgment of value to do so. We can’t because the value is always subjective. The action is true, in a sense, to the actor. However, a third-party can never say it’s true or false. It’s only the actor’s choice. Actions are neither true nor false to anyone but the acting individuals. Values are always subjective.
As Mises said, “Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things and conditions but in the valuing subject.” Its impossible to establish an objective set of values. Likewise, it’s impossible to establish values under a certain set of conditions. Humans may act the same under certain conditions, but they may not. An individual can’t even established objective values for himself. The choice may be correct or incorrect, that doesn’t matter.
Values are always personal and voluntary. If they are forced on to you from an outside scheme, they are neither personal nor voluntary. There is no such thing as an objective value. Not even for the individual doing the valuing. They can always change at a different time. Many are too sensitive to accept this, or they have selective hearing and seeing. So, they can keep pushing schemes like they have a solution to the world’s problems.
Reference
Ludwig von Mises; Theory and History