Dear Amanda

I'm new to SROI but having googled it, it looks very interesting and I'm keen to find out more about how a social value is given a financial figure etc. I'll have to find out more. It is however very timely that you've mentioned this because recently we've been debating the idea of giving monetary awards to students who display excellent moral character. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivations aside, the question is how one moves from one type of value to another type. The idea that price is a proxy for (social) *preferences* brings to mind Carl Menger, and the Austrian tradition in economics. Perhaps one interesting question is whether these things which we value are mere preferences, or truly valuable even if no one prefers these. It may be the case that, some social effect may be much preferred, and could be priced quite highly if we have this Mengerian subjective theory of value, but may not, objectively speaking be truly that valuable. Conversely some social goods may be priced very low because not too many people like it, even though more *should*. But all of this depends on how prices are given or allocated to these social values. I don't know enough but are these prices awarded based on how much these social goods are wanted, desired, preferred? The subjective theory of valuation ala Menger explains well why water is cheap (they are in abundance, so there's no great desire for them), and why diamonds are so costly (they are rare, or we've been told they are our best friends, so we desire them very much), but need not, arguably, be a prescriptive principle, and in this regard I'm inclined, against Menger, towards price "fixing". So how do we get the prices we have for these social goods? That's I think an interesting question. If we get rid of the subjective theory of values, then how else do we allocate the price figure? Do real goods, central to human flourishing, deserve higher prices than other frivolous whims which the majority prefer? Should they not? And can we exploit that as an incentive? Ok I'm beginning to see its potential. With SROI we can all talk money and the countable, which is great, but the battle is to make a case for fixing a high price to *real* goods. The other thing is perhaps also to develop a strong case for what one thinks are real goods. Also suppose we successfully monetize the variety of goods, when doing cost benefit analysis, can it be possible for us to disregard some goods in order to maximize our net gain, or to always make (quite successfully) the case that a certain good, although monetized, should be systematically disregarded precisely because it "cashes in less"? Whereas when the goods are not monetized, any such argument cannot be made because that particular good is unique and cannot be replaced even if we had more of another? The tendency I see here is that it has the potential to lead to an apparent "one right answer" in policy and decision making. But the attraction of not monetizing the goods is that, because we cannot compute for the right answer, we are left with a host of possibilities, neither of which seems the best or most right--a nightmare for policy makers and advocates, but perhaps for designer a basis for 'style'? Simon, I think, was quite delighted with 'style' and thought this ideas warranted such a thing. Sorry, I'm rambling, and I must confess that I don't know SROI well enough, but now I think I have another theoretical paradigm through which to understand some of the ongoing debates at this end. Many thanks
Jude



-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bill, Amanda
Sent: Wednesday, 14 March, 2012 11:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Change of Paradigm for Design

Dear Jude

I cannot say I fully understand your vision of thomistic designerly knowing, perhaps because it is so well clothed in the masculine pronoun. I would be interested though, in knowing your opinion of the many attempts to measure social value, as in the "Social Return on Investment" model which seems currently favoured in after-neoliberal policy making?

Amanda

Institute of Design for Industry and Environment College of Creative Arts Massey University, Wellington New Zealand

+64 4 8015799 ex 62555

email: [log in to unmask]





On 13/03/12 2:57 PM, "CHUA Soo Meng Jude (PLS)" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>snip
>One here needs to connect up with work in ethics and welfare economics...

>I think it would be very interesting to explore and develop the kind of
>designerly knowing that would be thomistic, and which sees creative
>designing as fully infused and guided by ethical precepts and ideals,
>and precisely as a kind of participation of the transcendent. Here man
>realizes, through his designing work, not only that work which he
>designs transitively, but his own value qua imago dei.
>
>In other words design needs to be fully involved in this discussion,
>but it must I feel, find the right allies.
>
>Jude
National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg

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