King Rat

Mmmm, good one.

I'll have to chew on that.

My first response is yes, I'm valueing you enough to care about and respond to your point of view as it pertains to this thread.

But you may not even exist.

Primal

In a sense it does make you feel good or you may believe that it will lead to some rewards in the future that feel good(which would make it an extrinsic value).

People have conflicting feelings and emotions are not merely limited to "feeling totally good" or "feeling totally bad".

Perhaps you may not like it when someone tells you something unpleasant, but you may feel worse, in some way if they lie or you find out what they told you was a lie.

I think guilt usually accompanies willful dishonesty.

Wyrdsmyth

It looks like you're letting the theist control the course of the debate. You need to lay bare his line of reasoning, which might be like this:

Let p = intrinsic (objective) human value.

1) Humanism can't explain p.
2) Religion X can explain p.
3) Therefore, Religion X has superior explanatory power than humanism in regards to p.

sophie

Any objections to the value needs valuer pragmatic philosophy must be made outside the existential nature of pragmatism. Essentially the subject-object relationship downplays any essence object can have.

The value of object in its relationship with subject is linked to its utility. Its utility is its usefulness or its meaningfulness in subjective reality.

It is important to note here that any object which has utility necessarily entails it within itself. In other words the parameters of its utility is physically enscribed in itself.

Therefore pragmatically the object shaped for utility will have the greatest value to the subject in the enaction of the subject's reality.

Turning to an ideal, let me describe a possible defense of intrinsic value. There was a group of nine people who were to be moved to a small apartment complex,complete with small elevators, fully
furnished. The designers of the apartment complex manufacture two of everyting, as such there would be a two spartment complex. They made a road up to the complex and put a fork where to the right further past the bend they assembled one apartment complex. The left fork led to a largely immense field
where each part of the complex was neatly laid out next to each other stretching for miles.

When all this was done, they called up the nine
and sent them up the road. At the fork they asked
each if they believed in the intrinsic value of
things. Those who answered yes were told how the
apartment complex was organised at the end of each
turn in the fork. They could then make their choice
as to which complex they wanted to live in. Those
who said things had no intrinsic value they were
asked to choose one or the other.

Thinking about this puzzle I realise that for something to have intrinsic value to sh ould be ready to deliver to the pragmatist exactly what the pragmatist would find ideal in the utility value department of the pragmatist.

Thus for utility to be instant the object must have
emergent properties in itself which allows itself to
hold a valued relationship with a subject. Because the
pragmatist needs an existential relationship with the
object any value must be derived from the properties
of the object itself. The properties of the object
which gives it value in its utility is the interface
to its essence which privides those properties direct
or latent.

I would have to argue the case for organisation of unvalued material to be its intrinsic value which takes it to be valued before its supreme. Without its specific organisation which allows it to demonstrate its utility it is not what it is and as such its utility falls.

It now seems to me well organised unvalued material has a certain intrinsic value embedded in its organisation.

Saying all this I would have to propose the organisation of the object as entailing its intrinsic value.

sophie

The best way to gain value is to be more organised. Dennett was recently arguing the case. What this means in this case is that organisation allows emergent features which are more organisable than the sum of the unorganised parts.

The organisation of the foundation of existence has an inherent feature which transcends all existence and is tightly connected with existence and is apparent through existence because of the need to endure existence in order to have existence.

The term existence cannot be mentioned without a corresponding fact of all existent material enduring its own existence. Once enduring in a dimension any enduring material would be visible in that dimension. This is the same as saying if something exists in some dimension then it would be bounded by the dimension as such making it part of the dimension visible within the dimension. If it can be seen through information transfer it is knowable within the dimension. If its visibility is only a mathematical conjecture since it transfers no information within its dimension it becomes part of the invisible infrastructure of the dimension. Invisible infrastructure is unknowable except through reason.

What we really mean to say is the organisation of our universe compels time with and within its existence. The intrinsic value of our universe because of its organisational structure is time and it is this intrinsic value which compels existence to be ready to meet the challenge of a valuer. Time is always in step with existence to offer value in the relationship it forms with a valuer or with some human's pragmatic appreciation.

Now we can look at organisation as having true pragmatic appeal and if properly organised can also appeal to the pragmatist with its emergent properties of organisation. If we should think along the lines of intrinsic value then we have to come to grips with essence as connected to the organisational complex. It is difficult to think in an abstract manner of organisational appeal without realising it may very well include a complex which is parallel in its nature thusly it is an incorporation of the parallel nature of existence making itself visible through the simultaneous nature of its enduring companion time.

Organisational appeal for humans as a thing-by-itself stretches the spectrum of philosophical posturing. Their mental experiences are most highly organised and recognised when an Intelligence is noticable. Physical experiences are most highly organised with the experience having a value-for-itself under a large number of conditions. The value a human brings to the herd is the organisational availability humans can demonstrate using cognitive organisations meant for display.

If I were to ask the question of how can any human improve their value through having an intrinsic value and I was told it depends on organising principles, I would first want to ask which organising principles would amount to the most valuable.

Are there many organising principles which apply to
the real world of sophistication and specialisation
or do the sophisticates and specialists have a few
extra organisational details which makes them more
attractive to the valued eye and allows them to be
hailed as specialists. If everyone were specialists
then all would share the same organisation would they not...

Thomas Ash

I disagree with your suggestion that something having value can only mean that it is "valued by" some specific agent. What I'd use as possibly the best example of something having "value" is our feelings of pleasure, happiness or contentment. It's intrinsic to these experiences (indeed, it's at the very heart of their essence, rather than with experiences like seeing a colour or smelling a smell, where that content is at the center of the experience) that they have something which would be recognisable to anyone as a "positive value", even if they've never heard of that concept before. It's not that people choose to 'value' this experience rather than another one, for example that of seeing the colour blue, it's that at the very heart of the definition of the experience of happiness is that it 'has value.' ( )

sophie

For me to complete this cycle of responses I would have to say the intrinsic value of human life is a combination of the intrinsic value of a human together with the intrinsic value of existence.

Therefore by Sophie's line of reasoning the intrinsic value of human life is : its ORGANISING ABILITY IN TIME.

Wiploc

Admit to him that you were just expressing an attitude. You value life, all human life, and you tried to express that by saying life has intrinsic value.

Tell him that you don't feel defensive about not being able to show that the value of life is literally intrinsic, because Christians can't do that either. Tell him that if he thinks Christians can justify the claim any better than Atheists, that you (and the rest of the world) want to know about it.

Put the burden of proof on him. His question is actually a claim that he can justify the value of life better than you can. Have him try to back up that claim.
crc