Hierarchy of values is a concept in US legal analysis that Yale Law School and New York Law School Professor Myres McDougal popularized.
[1] It refers to an ordered list of social values that influence judicial decision-making.
One jurist may value predictability and certainty of expectation very highly and value fine-tuning the result to the equities of the individual case somewhat lower, while another might order these values in the other direction.
A 2002 study group concluded that "“there was no well-developed and authoritative hierarchy of values in international law.”[2] An example of a value hierarchy in the sense that MacDougal uses it is found in Paideia.
[3] Abraham Maslow created a table of two columns of opposing value hierarchies, supposedly reflecting competing social paradigms.