The bottom line is that the only way something can have intrinsic value is for it to have something (or someone) who can assign it the property that the observer deems valuable. Without (insert any sufficiently intelligent being here) to debate all this, there would not even be such a thing as value in the first place...no?

I think that there may be another way to determine the existence of intrinsic value without hinging the question on objective analysis. By the board's definition, intrinsic value is universal among living beings (I'd prefer to focus on humans, but I think the concept can apply to all living beings if only in a more rudimentary way). Reducing the question to personal or subjective analysis, what can be said about intrinsic value is not so much its permutation, but its existence. Its definitions (even it's name: intrinsic value, primordial drive, raison d'etre, etc) are as varied as its manifestations. Furthermore, I think a good way that it can be looked at is through the greatest commonality of human experience rather than all the differences. It is in the manner with which we address the incompleteness of our experience as living beings that humanity finds its common ground. The action of completion, that of furthering the union of sense and sensation is simulataneously encompassed on the biomechanical as well as the emotional level. This is intrinsic value.

I guess I threw too much out there at once and it needs further revision. But thanks for drawing out some of my thoughts.

misterpessimistic: So the authors attempt is the ONLY way to establish a naturalistic ethical system?

I didn't say that. What I said was that your disagreement with the author on the existence of intrinsic value puts you against his system. I'm still open to the idea that there might be a logically sound ethical system rooted in naturalism alone. I just haven't seen it yet.

dagege: That all entities (especially humans) take measures to attain a certain quality of existence makes the end product of this process an intrinsic value.

Do all entities seek the same quality of existence? It doesn't seem so to me, and in that case, we'd have to conclude that there isn't a singular intrinsic value.

misterpessimistic: Without (insert any sufficiently intelligent being here) to debate all this, there would not even be such a thing as value in the first place...no?

That doesn't seem right to me. Something may be valuable whether or not we can cognize its value, just as something can have substance whether or not we've ever attempted to touch it.

dagege: It is in the manner with which we address the incompleteness of our experience as living beings that humanity finds its common ground. The action of completion, that of furthering the union of sense and sensation is simulataneously encompassed on the biomechanical as well as the emotional level. This is intrinsic value.

Before you can really present this as a logically grounded argument -- particularly one that appeals to a naturalistic mindset -- you've got to substantiate the idea of incompleteness and justify any desire to find "completeness". It may that this drive to a more than human completeness is an epistemic red herring. I'd say that it has more to do with the transcendental programs of religion that it has to do with naturalism.

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What I said was that your disagreement with the author on the existence of intrinsic value puts you against his system.

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Yes. You are correct in that case. But I still support his point of godless ethics. But do not get me wrong...I do not DISCOUNT the idea that religion and god can give people an ethical base to live from, but you seem to say that you do not think that those who reject this have an ethical base. I resent that and thus get a little pissed off and then get a tad pugilistic in my retorts. In the end, for me, it is all about what makes you a good person...not killing and raping and causing harm to others...

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Something may be valuable whether or not we can cognize its value, just as something can have substance whether or not we've ever attempted to touch it.

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I do not see how this can be so. Value is a distinctly human assignment of quality...and I am talking about the transcendent type of value...not value as it pertains to facilitating continued physical existence or sustenance. And I think it is a mistake to mix a physical quality with an metaphysical quality, for this is how I see this analogy playing out.

And do you agree as well that intrinsic 'good' and 'evil' exist? "W" offers "Pain" as an intrinsic evil...but is it REALLY? Does not pain alert us to a problem that we can then address and curtail a potentially more serious situation? Is not pain good in this instance? If so, then pain is not intrinsically evil after all...just some forms of it.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

dagege: That all entities (especially humans) take measures to attain a certain quality of existence makes the end product of this process an intrinsic value.

Do all entities seek the same quality of existence? It doesn't seem so to me, and in that case, we'd have to conclude that there isn't a singular intrinsic value.


I'd have to disagree: A hypothetical example, let's say everyone wants a car. The fact that everyone wants different cars does not negate a car as an intrinsic value. In fact, our uniqueness constructs the details of "car" differently. Does that mean there is only one car and the rest are not? There are infinite number of cars, as many as there are conceivers of "car". It is impossible to all want the same car, just as it is impossible to all want the same quality of existence. Nevertheless in our hypothetical, everyone still wants a car; and in reality, everyone still attains to a certain quality of existence.





dagege: It is in the manner with which we address the incompleteness of our experience as living beings that humanity finds its common ground. The action of completion, that of furthering the union of sense and sensation is simulataneously encompassed on the biomechanical as well as the emotional level. This is intrinsic value.

Before you can really present this as a logically grounded argument -- particularly one that appeals to a naturalistic mindset -- you've got to substantiate the idea of incompleteness and justify any desire to find "completeness". It may that this drive to a more than human completeness is an epistemic red herring. I'd say that it has more to do with the transcendental programs of religion that it has to do with naturalism

Transcendentalism*, naturalism**, and other isms are viable avenues through which intrinsic value is expressed. The proof of our ongoing incompleteness is that we experience constant change. We cannot exist perpetually in any frozen state. We simply must change. We must change to adapt to ourselves and our environment. We are never (and are always) complete. I write "and are always" because the moment of change is simultaneously the moment of completion. It is the moment we are in unison with our intrinsic value whether we care to recognize it or not. Furthermore, it is the perpetual totality with which we move toward completion (or any other term you might feel comfortable labeling toward what end we satisfy our hungers) that is intrinsically valuable.



*.... philosophical movement,... asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition.

** Philosophy. The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws. Theology. The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation.

misterpessimistic : I do not DISCOUNT the idea that religion and god can give people an ethical base to live from, but you seem to say that you do not think that those who reject this have an ethical base.

Let's say that I'm entertaining it as an idea with a lot of support. Or rather, that I don't see much support for the other side. I haven't seen any consistent non-religious ethical systems, with the exception of those that disclaim religion while, intentionally or otherwise, building off of religious claims.

The way I look at it is this: 1) there have been, to my knowledge, no past ethical systems that were formulated outside of a religious context; 2) all of the religious systems that I have examined all begin with concepts that are founded in, and are unsupported without, the background of a religious conception of the universe; and 3) while there have been modern attempts to build a naturalistic or an atheist ethics -- Weilenberg's attempt being one of them -- I haven't seen any that were logically consistent.

That isn't to say that it's impossible to arrive at a naturalistic, non-theistic ethics, but without any evidence supporting the claim that one is possible, I think it's valid to entertain the possibility -- even perhaps the likelihood -- that strict naturalism and ethics are mutually exclusive.

In the end, for me, it is all about what makes you a good person...not killing and raping and causing harm to others...

Where it gets problematic is the criteria by which we decide that someone is a "good person" -- if there's no intrinsic criteria for determining good, then how do we decide whether or not a person is good? If it's entirely dependent on the circumstances, then ethics as a system for determining the right course of action is in danger of being either a) so complex that we're rarely capable of saying what is good, or b) impossible, because no logical system can always take the variables of the situation into account. For example, if we say that ethics are always relative, then we're more or less forced to admit that, in some circumstances, rape and murder may be good rather than evil. The big problem is knowing when rape is good and when it is evil -- what criteria do you use to determine that, except the circumstances themselves? (Just to be explicit, I don't think rape is ever ethically justified, but that's where the example leads us.)

It may be that there is no natural criteria against which to judge our conduct, but you can see how it makes ethics more practical to believe that there is, can't you?

Value is a distinctly human assignment of quality...and I am talking about the transcendent type of value...not value as it pertains to facilitating continued physical existence or sustenance.

In a strictly naturalistic scheme, I don't know that there's any place for transcendent types. Still, I think there are ways that you can divorce value from human assessment. You could consider the value of any given object to the universe as a whole -- not only would such a consideration be external to human assessment, it would be impossible for a human to really assess. That wouldn't really make it very useful for ethics, but it does demonstrate how something could have value outside of our subjectivity.

You also have to bear in mind that when we use the term "value" in this context, we're speaking so loosely as to almost lose any meaning the term might have. Weight is a value; so is frequency. So before we can really talk about the ethical value that any given object might have, we need to be more explicit about what aspect of the thing we're talking about when we say that it has such and such a value. The Utilitarian view -- which is the one we most often associate with ethical value, though it need not be the only one -- is that a thing's value is proportionate to the use we can derive from it. A pseudo-evolutionary view might posit that value is a matter of how efficiently a given object contributes to the adaptation of an organism or its ecosystem; conversely, another such view might posit that value is a matter of how efficiently an object contributes to balance, that is, how well it suppresses the need for adaptation. It's a pretty complex question -- what do we mean by value?

And do you agree as well that intrinsic 'good' and 'evil' exist?

I agree that in a purely naturalistic system, there is no place for an intrinsic good and evil. I'd say that naturalism offers no place for the idea of good and evil at all, and that's part of why it's so difficult to found a system of ethics on naturalism alone. Whether or not we ought to embrace that kind of naturalism as the whole of reality is a question that I debate on a regular basis -- I'd say the question hinges on that.

dagege: I'd have to disagree: A hypothetical example, let's say everyone wants a car. The fact that everyone wants different cars does not negate a car as an intrinsic value. In fact, our uniqueness constructs the details of "car" differently.

To carry that analogy out, we could equally say that two people could want different "goods" -- what are, to each individual, good -- and that we'd have no rational reason for saying that one is intrinsic and the other is not. It doesn't much matter that one is calling prosperity a good, while the other is calling genocide good. They've constructed the details of good differently, and your system provides no criteria for distinguishing between them. In fact, I see no reason, as yet, to consider either intrinsic.

Transcendentalism*, naturalism**, and other isms are viable avenues through which intrinsic value is expressed.

No, they're avenues through which intrinsic value is claimed. That someone has claimed it does not make it so.

Furthermore, it is the perpetual totality with which we move toward completion (or any other term you might feel comfortable labeling toward what end we satisfy our hungers) that is intrinsically valuable.

There's no guarantee that we do or even can satisfy our hungers. For that matter, what proof do we have that our hunger is not part of our present completeness? How can constant change be proof of our incompleteness -- if we didn't change, wouldn't we be incomplete by virtue of our lacking the dynamic element of change?

dagege:: A hypothetical example, let's say everyone wants a car. The fact that everyone wants different cars does not negate a car as an intrinsic value. In fact, our uniqueness constructs the details of "car" differently.


MadArchitect: To carry that analogy out, we could equally say that two people could want different "goods" -- what are, to each individual, good -- and that we'd have no rational reason for saying that one is intrinsic and the other is not. It doesn't much matter that one is calling prosperity a good, while the other is calling genocide good. They've constructed the details of good differently, and your system provides no criteria for distinguishing between them. In fact, I see no reason, as yet, to consider either intrinsic.

dagege: That's because you continue to insist on critiquing each individual "good". Each individual "good" is not intrinsic. Rather it is of intrinsic value that all have decided to pursue a quality that is recognized as good. It is the drive toward "good", not the "good" itself that is intrinsic. What I'm propounding is that everyone and every living being seeks out his or her "good." That is, every being does not commit random acts but acts within a certain framework of their own construction. The drive toward constructing this framework, implementing it, and refining it is the intrinsic value.





dagege: Transcendentalism*, naturalism**, and other isms are viable avenues through which intrinsic value is expressed.

MadArchitect: No, they're avenues through which intrinsic value is claimed. That someone has claimed it does not make it so.

dagege: If intrinsic value is claimed as any of the above isms, I'd agree with you that these isms are not of intrinsic value. But at their core, the isms are useful when adapted individually and expressed. In fact, isms do not really exist at all. What exists is the narrative or expression of the isms' propounder, who knowingly or unknowingly is expressing intrinsic value.




dagege: Furthermore, it is the perpetual totality with which we move toward completion (or any other term you might feel comfortable labeling toward what end we satisfy our hungers) that is intrinsically valuable.

MadArchitect: There's no guarantee that we do or even can satisfy our hungers. For that matter, what proof do we have that our hunger
is not part of our present completeness?

dagege: The proof that we can satisfy our hunger is because our hungers are not constant. Our actions eventually relinquish them. The proof that hunger is not part of our present completeness is that we cannot remain hungry indefinitely.

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MadArchitect: How can constant change be proof of our incompleteness -- if we didn't change, wouldn't we be incomplete by virtue of our lacking the dynamic element of change?

dagege: Exactly! But we do not change randomly, we change according to a framework

MA: I appreciate the seriousness with which you addressed my contentions. There is a bit of hair splitting I must do as our viewpoints shake out.

This thread's question of "does intrinsic value exist" seems to preface the book. I am interested in how the book's author might frame a response, but shouldn't think that we need be restrained by it in this particular thread. Thank you again for taking the time to address my contentions.

Intrinsic good vs Intrinsic value:
My assertion is of the existence of intrinsic value not of intrinsic good. I began to use the term "good" as a hypothetical. However I do, as you suspect, believe that without the elasticity of variation, human existence, and all living beings cannot comform to an absolute good.

I am advocating that there exists intrinsic value. Defining it again, I'll state that it's the element of direction or drive or core belief that allows living beings to order a random and chaotic world. I'd love to discuss Socrates, Plato and Freud in another thread.

I'd answer your questions regarding the simpler forms of life, the diseased & the compulsive with an affirmative. They too have intrinsic value and are directing themselves using an evolving framework reflexive of their encounter with the world. Is this intrinsic value simply by the virtue of doing anything at all? YES! All living beings by the virtue of their existence are graced with choice. The choices they make, the doing of anything at all, is the keyhole to view the shape intrinsic value takes within their individual being. What I'm particularly interested in is why people make the choices they make and why people do the things that they do given the infinite amount of options available. The study of simpler life forms has revealed much in this regard. It is a study that is certainly quantifiable.

But the question of the existence of intrinsic value: the ? of the existence of a foundation to which our choices must either conform or be shaped by is essential to determine why disturbing behavior (ie Murder, assualt, rape, robbery etc) has and continues to be perpetuated throughout history in spite of the countless moral systems and moralities that speak against it. It must be that morality itself does not control. However, there is some kind of control because we do not act randomly. It seems appropriate to name this control intrinsic value even if one chooses to see it as a fragmented amalgamation of personal history. Even were it to be viewed as an infinitely sided spinning prism reflecting past emotive experiences, the readily apparent attempts at ordering a chaotic world hints at the possibility of systematic analysis.


the issue of completeness:
It probably isn't necessary to assume that completeness can be achieved. I'd venture to guess that entire libraries have been written about this state and how the saintly, ascetic and devout have devoted their lives to achieving it. But for common existence and for my curiosity, the fact that we address internal needs by reaching out externally until those internal needs attenuate is observable and easily subject to analysis. These observable patterns allow us insight into the force(s) that drive them. Hopefully, the architecture of intrinsic value (as described above) can be revealed by starting to look here.

Morality's place:
As mentioned earlier, it would seem that morality is misplaced as a controller while evidently too weak a force to accomplish this task. As such, one of my lesser curiosities is the exploration of how morality is set as a bolster and crutch for raw expressions of intrinsic value that are irreconcilable.


Intrinsic good and God:
both symbols that require faith

What I would suggest is that any atheist willing to follow their atheism to its logical conclusion also consider the possibility that they may have to part with ethics. And it may be possible to have a society without ethics. But that is, as far as I know, a question that no one has put much effort into answering.
I've tried, in so far as ethics and systems of morality do not control, but symbolize the individual in his quest for the self. Here's a recent quote (3/2006) from Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities: "Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence."


I seriously doubt that you see ethics as a mere psychological game, and I doubt that you would excuse unethical behavior in another person on the grounds that they perceive rape and murder to be a personal good regardless of your personal perception.

psychological yes, a game no. perceiving murder and rape as the end product of a psychological process allows you to address the process and most importantly identify it before the action occurs. perceiving murder and rape as amoral, unethical, and antisocial only allows you to punish the action after it occurs. both strategies are essential for justice, but we're discussing a common thread that runs through human behavior rather than dispensing justice.


Can I deny it? Not definitively. But I suspect that there might be an ethics that transcends our limited subjectivity. I'm just rational enough to know that such a claim is inconsistent with a naturalistic world-view.
definitely, but because ethical systems have been spectacular in their failings, calling it an ethical system may be due to a limited subjectivity as well. how about behavioral self-controls?

Tara:

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What a cute, ugly little fellow!

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I seem to hear that alot...




Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

dagege: I am interested in how the book's author might frame a response....

Then you might help out the book discussion by picking up a copy and taking a stab at it. While this thread is doing well enough on its own, we haven't really been discussing the book much, and that's the whole reason this particular forum was created. This topic likely would have never come up if we hadn't chosen "Virtue and Value" as the quarterly reading.

My assertion is of the existence of intrinsic value not of intrinsic good.

It doesn't look like it. Saying that intrinsic value exists suggests to me that there is a criteria for asserting the value of something that is objective of any subjective point of view. It looks to me that what you're arguing for is an intrinsically human drive to value things, which is very different from what rivercoil was asking about when he started this thread. I don't think that's splitting hairs at all -- you're using identical language to talk about something very different, and that's where the confusion got started.

Look at this quote: Defining it again, I'll state that it's the element of direction or drive or core belief that allows living beings to order a random and chaotic world. What you're talking about here -- unless I've badly misinterpreted -- is a psychological response to a world that may or may not have a value independent of that response. Weilenberg, on the other hand, is talking about something existing apart from the faculties of any being that happens to perceive it; he calls intrinsic value "part of the furniture of the universe". And those of us who are reading the book are likely looking at this question in those terms rather than in the subjective/psychological terms that you've used to interpret the question.

Is this intrinsic value simply by the virtue of doing anything at all? YES! All living beings by the virtue of their existence are graced with choice.

Once you assert this, your argument falls into circularity. You're saying that all things tend towards a value because you've defined all things tended towards as having value. That's like Aristotle saying that all things tend towards the center because whatever a thing tends towards is the center. If we play the shell game with our definitions of terms, we can validate any assertion we make.

It must be that morality itself does not control.

No, of course not. If it did, we'd think of it as an autonomic process, and not as an aspect of culture. Culture always involves and element of the voluntary.

It seems appropriate to name this control intrinsic value even if one chooses to see it as a fragmented amalgamation of personal history.

Why "intrinsic" value? Why not just value? Are we that certain that the values which drive any given being are "intrinsic"? It seems to me that even an evolved value isn't quite what you'd call intrinsic.

It probably isn't necessary to assume that completeness can be achieved.... But for common existence and for my curiosity, the fact that we address internal needs by reaching out externally until those internal needs attenuate is observable and easily subject to analysis.

What I don't understand is why you'd insiste on a term like "completeness", which trails behind it a whole boatload of quasi-mystical connotations and associations, when there are plenty of less loaded terms out there. Hunger, for instance, isn't motivated by a desire for completeness -- it's motivated by the need for energy. You might be able to wrangle out a connection between that need and the desire for completeness, but I don't see any particular reason to do so. It seems sufficient to me to note that, without energy, a lifeform will eventually die. That's not a drive towards completeness, but rather maintenance of a biological status quo.

Quoting Zizek: A moral deed is by definition its own reward.

The problem isn't justifying moral action -- it's substantiating it. What actions are moral? A major part of what we're discussing when we talk about intrinsic value (and not an intrinsic tendency to valuate) is what basis or criteria we have for determining what precisely we mean when we say one action is or is not moral -- how do we decide which is which. If Zizek is serious about persuing a non-religious morality, then he has to define that morality. A major part of the problem of atheistic morality, as I see it, is defining individual morals. And a major obstacle to that lies in the tendency of atheists to adapt their moral from the centuries of preceding religious morality without sufficiently considering the basis for those borrowed morals.

perceiving murder and rape as amoral, unethical, and antisocial only allows you to punish the action after it occurs.

If you're an outside observer. If you're the person who finds themselves in a position to rape or murder, perceiving them as amoral is a potential influence (without serving as an adamantine control) in how you will decide to behave.

definitely, but because ethical systems have been spectacular in their failings, calling it an ethical system may be due to a limited subjectivity as well.

They're only spectacular failures in so far as they're veiwed as modes of social control. I don't see them that way. I see them as modes of personal influence, and to that degree their success varies according to the effectiveness with which each individual applies them to their own conduct.

Getting back to some earlier comments I missed...

Meme Wars: I do believe we have an evolved sense of right and wrong that works within the dynamics of a small hunter/gatherer tribe, that modern religions try to lay claim on.

I'd say that there are at least two versions of this point of view that are worth considering. One is that we have simply evolved morality. I think that's a problematic assertion. We may have evolved certain emotional and psychological responses to certain forms of conduct, but I don't know that those responses would really qualify as morality in the full sense of that word. I think the more tenable version would be that we've evolved certain loosely consistent emotional and psychological responses, and that those become morality when we articulate them in certain ways. That version gives rise to a number of qualifications and consequences that are important. For one, it allows for some measure of imprecision in the act of articulating, such that our morality can differ from our evolved responses in significant ways. And I think an observation of morality would bear that out. But I would say that the notions of right and wrong don't really come into play until the responses have been articulated. Otherwise, our conduct would be guided not by morality but by sheer instinct.

But our discussion appears to break from this and is about intrinsic values outside of evolved human 'value' instinct.

And that, unless I've misread him, is precisely what Weilenberg is talking about when he uses the phrase "intrinsic value". I've discussed that in more detail in my last two posts in this thread, so I won't elaborate here.

For those who read it, what is the best argument or explanation of 'intrinsic values' the author has to offer?

Your best bet is to go to the book itself, but if you want a Cliff's Notes version you can check out our responses to Weilenberg's argument here.

Meme Wars: Occam's razor: The simplest explanation is usually the more correct one.

I don't think Occam's razor makes any assertions about what is and is not correct. It states that it's best not to suppose more entities than are necessary to explain a phenomenon, but that in itself doesn't assert anything about the truth value of that supposition.

Post modernism fails to do this task and resists scientific testing. It feeds upon itself with ever greater complexity with many unnecessary terms and conversations.

Since you enjoy seeing people play devil's advocate... Can you demonstrate an instance of where post-modernism does all of that? Without a meaningful example, I'm not sure that I can really address your claim.

We can have a meaningful conversation about values without the term 'intrinsic'. The word is not necessary.

No, it isn't necessary, so long as we can always refer those values back to the subjective point of view that validates them. Weilenberg, however, is talking about the sort of values that would be necessary in order to justify a morality that is indenpendent of any subjective point of view. He really is talking about an "intrinsic" value, one that occurs naturally.

I am sufficiently intelligent to understand any concept a human being can throw at me. The burden is on the person presenting a view to be intelligible and tangible to our everyday experiences, not the listener or reader.

Intelligence isn't the only factor in understanding concepts. One major problem is that "our everyday experiences" are norms that are conditioned by our view of the world.

If indeed we are moving away from modernism and humanism (science & reason), we are indeed sliding back into the chaotic realm of the dark ages.

Doubtful. So far as I can tell, we never really move back. We're always moving towards something different, no matter how much it resembles the past. The fact of its resemblence is likely as much a consequence of our own subjectivity -- both about our current state and about the past -- as it is of any real correspondence between eras.

Testing to see if my thumbnail picture shows.

Meme Wars

You did it!