6) The Failure of the Authority Method

Finally, we may consider one last method commonly used in attempting to establish the value of things: consulting specialists.

If we wish to determine the value of music, why not ask the music specialist—the musician? Or, if we wish to assess the value of painting, why not turn to a painter?
Specialists, who have spent years in the company of the object of their devotion, might seem the most qualified to reveal its value to us.

Appealing as this idea is, it appears to have two notable flaws.
First, what the specialist primarily learns about a subject is how to practise it. A professional dancer, for instance, will undoubtedly know how to dance far better than we do—this is what they have honed through years of training. But this does not necessarily mean they have any greater insight into the inherent value of dance itself.
The specialist's advantage over us as mere amateurs lies in their greater experience: they have dedicated more time to the subject than we have, which leads us to suppose that only they can discern its value.
Yet as we have already suggested, the value of something cannot be determined through experience alone. It becomes clear that consulting specialists is essentially just a particular form of the empirical method.

Moreover, if a specialist—a painter, say—insists that only he can determine the value of a painting, we might recall the words of the ancient painter Apelles to a cobbler. The shoemaker, an expert in shoes, had laughed at the sandals Apelles had depicted in one of his canvases, prompting Apelles to repaint them. When the shoemaker returned the following day and began criticising other parts of the painting, however, Apelles replied: 'Shoemaker, not beyond the shoe.'
In the same vein, we might say to the painter who, as a specialist, claims sole authority to judge the value of painting: 'Painter, not beyond the painting.' We might further suggest that, if he is willing to grant specialists ultimate authority in their respective fields, he ought to consider allowing the specialist in values—if such a person exists—to have the final word on the matter: the axiologist.

The failure of these five successive methods, which appear to have been employed without explicit conceptualisation by received opinion or certain philosophers, might lead us to conclude that values are indeed without foundation. Since every attempt to establish values has relied on one or more of these methods, this fundamental problem—the absence of a foundation for values—has its roots in both ancient and modern thought.

A researcher who accepts this reality might then reflect upon it and attempt to discern its consequences: if values lack a foundation, how are we then to conduct ourselves in life?