Someone made a thread about what Quality is. They wrote in the thread:
“What makes a person feel or have the opinion that something is “good.””
I began trying to explain my thoughts on the subject but I kept finding it neccessary to describe my understanding of the linguistic side of this question… and so I wrote about “Value” which to me is synonymous to “quality.”
I wonder what you all think of the following? Is my analysis acurate? Is it too complicated? Is there a much easier way of saying or describing the concept? This is what I want to know.
Once I have this squared away I can realy begin thinking about the human aspect of the question.
Btw, excuse the spelling, my spell check isn’t working and I just suck at spelling in general 
Here it is:
What is value?
What does it mean when we say something is better than another thing? Or smarter, stronger, bigger or smaller? These are all relational words. They relate some thing A to some thing B. But the type of relationship we build when we talk of things this way is such that we invoke a specific system of value and compare A and B according to their positions in that system. We can call these types of statements value relation statements.
When we say that A is faster than B, what we are bassicly doing is imagining a number line with units of speed along it, placing A and B in their apropriate spots along that line and than describing that relationship. So saying that A is faster than B is saying that A is further right (or left depending on how you set up the number line) along this “units of speed” line. Now imagine simply switching the type of unit on this line. Instead of a “units of speed” line, it can be a “units of size” line or a “units of intelligence” line, yielding statements such as “A is bigger/smaller than B” or “A is smarter/dumber than B.” In each case there is this line, which is reprasentative of the specific system of value being invoked. Now, we may not always think about things with this number line. Every time you make a value relational statement, you may not have a number line in mind. But what is important is that in all cases one could acuratly represent the statement with a referance towards a line with the relevant units of measurement, even if the units were only theoretical.
This representative line can be anything you want it to be. And this line is how I understand value. The nature of value is in this abstract line. Once contextualized, the line becomes a specific type of value. So contained in the understanding of value is the abstract set of all comparitive charactaristics or properties. Just think about the following scenario:
You draw a line and unidentified types of units along it. You place a point A and a point B along the line. Than you show someone the relation between A and B in terms of the line. They will be aware that there is some kind of comparative relationship between A and B. Then you write under the line: “Units of Size.” What you have done is contextualized the abstract line. Suddenly, the person you are showing this to will be able to conclude that either “A is bigger than B” or “A is smaller than B”, depending on how you structure the units. But now, take one step back. Contextualizing the line only specifies the type of value we are concerned with. So the value relation statements “A is bigger than B” or “A is smaller than B” must have uncontextualized counterparts such as “A is _____ than B” wherein the blank is a positive or negative form of some abstract, unspecified term. That term is “value” or “valuable.” Upon originally seeing the unamed line with A and B, one can conclude the following: Either “A is more valuable than B” or “A is less valuable than B.”
This is the essence of the term “value”, and the answer to the original question. There are several other terms that are similar in that they are abstract, unspecific indicators of a value system. “Quality” is one of those. Good/Bad and Better/Worse are terms that indicate certain positions or relations in terms of “value” and thus are abstract and unspecified themselves.
