Amos

Life is a value because it is an illusion and thruth is absolute because it is maintained by life.

Amen-Moses

Thanks Amos, everything is much clearer now.

Amen-Moses

Amos

Sorry I know that that was not really fair but I find it difficult to explain.

I think it was Dostoevski who said that only "beauty and truth" were real. The rest is all relevant and in a continuous a state of change ("flux" somebody else call it). The bible (piss on it if you like), holds that only love and life are real because God is love and Lord God is life, with love being the continuity of life. Another way to say this is that Lord God breathed life into our soul and God replenishes the life of our soul because beauty is the continuity of truth.

In the terms used by evolution we would just say that adaptation takes care of the survival of the species.

From the omniscient perspective adaptation requires intelligence (the wisdom to adapt and change) and this wisdom is called God in the bible and was called beauty by Dostoevski. The changed species (after adaptation is made by each generation to the same extent as it is needed or possible), is called "lord God" in the bible and "truth" by Dostoevski. It is "truth" because it 'is' and the beauty of it is that it really "is not" but is suspended as the blueprint within the leading edge of each of the species.

I should add here that the blueprint is the essense of existence after which each generation is 'made' (formed) and the essence for the blueprint of the next generation is 'created' by and through the beauty of life in the present generation. Very deterinistic indeed, yet free to shape and form the next generation who themselves will be determined in their existence.

To bring this back on track I hold that objective values are needed to spell out the destiny of the next generation at least up until the time that our children mature and find their own harmony with nature.

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

bd-from-kg

jlowder:
That depends on what you mean by "independent of valuers". For example, suppose that (in some weird science fiction scenario perhaps) the only human beings alive are newborn babies who for whatever reason have always been asleep up to now (even as fetuses) but are about to awaken. They have never had an opportunity to value anything, yet they will quite predictably value certain things as soon as they're awake. What's more, they will predictably come to value other things (such as truth and knowledge) as they mature. I'd say that in this situation "values" exist in spite of the fact that at the moment there are no "valuers" - i.e., persons who actually value things right now. On the other hand, there are persons who exist right now who have the potential to value things.

But we can push things back another step and suppose that the individuals in question have not yet come into existence at all; the egss and sperm that will combine to form them are about to come together (in an artificial womb, say) but haven't yet done so. Once they do, they will predictably develop into humans who will predictably value certain things. Do values "exist" under these conditions? I'd say "yes" again, even though there are not even any potential valuers in existence.

99Percent

Life is a value as compared to non-life or death.

Truth is absolute because there is only one objective truth. A fact is either true or false.

One other thing universally valued by valuers is the ability to value itself - free will.

And also knowledge, as bd-from-kg points out.

jlowder

On the assumption that values do require valuers, does it even make sense to talk about "objective" values? Could a person consistently believe that values require valuers, but some values are "objectively" true while others are "objectively" false?

Or would that be a contradiction in terms? I notice that moral philosopher Louis Pojman defines "objective values" as values that "are worthy of desire whether or not anyone actually desires them; they are somehow independent of us." Given that (Pojman's) definition, then, would it be more accurate to say that if values require valuers, then there can be no values that are worthy of desire even if no one actually desires them, and hence that there are no objective values?

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

jlowder

At the hypothetical moment in time you describe--"the only human beings alive are newborn babies who for whatever reason have always been asleep up to now (even as fetuses) but are about to awaken"--what values would exist? Why not just say, "Until the later time when the babies mature and actually value things, values do not exist"?

I don't understand this. Again, if at a given point in time, all we have is potential valuers, wouldn't we just have potential values and not actual values?

Jeffery Jay Lowder

Ms. Siv

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this really 2 issues in 1 ?
The first issue is that of absolute morality. Do morals (right and wrong) make sense without objectives and environments. No they dont.

The second is the ageold epistemological question ... "If a tree falls in a forest and there's noone to hear it, does it make a sound ?"

Noone can answer this with 10% surety. But making the assumption that it does - the assumption of objective reality - works.

- S.

jlowder

Actually, my question is broader than morality. To be sure, one type of value is moral value. But there are other, non-moral types of value, including most notaby aesthetic value. My question applies equally to moral and non-moral value.

Actually, I understand my question to be an ontological question, not an epistemological question.

I'm not looking for 100% certainty. I'm happy to settle for a probabilistic argument for or against the view that value requires a valuer.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

Ms. Siv

JJL, What else, besides aesthetics, do you include in non-moral values ? Anything anyone, at any point of time, deems to be valuable ?
In any case, none of that makes sense without some objective, some value to be optimised.

Our genetic concept of beauty is based on the default objective - maximising gene propogation. Thats why we value symmetry and certain other parameters ... in faces, in landscapes etc.

No moral makes sense without specifying ...

1. The value to be optimized
2. The environment in which to optimize this value.

The value-er comes next, I suppose.

- S.