The Beautiful Simplicity of Ethical Concepts

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Value - by definition - involves a match… to put it in plain language: a match between the ideal and the actual. When the actual fulfills the ideal, there is value. - [size=85][Note that when I used the vague-language phrase “the actual fulfills the ideal” I meant that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two, not that one “reaches” the other.] [/size] If one wants to see the more-exact language then check out pp. 7 through 9 of the manual, ETHICS: A College Course, where “value” is defined with precision in a professional manner. - http://tinyurl.com/24cs9y7

Ethical values thus also involve a match. Morality {- by definition within the Unified Theory of Ethics -} is a match between one’s ideal Self and one’s actual self. Of course, it is the individual himself (or herself) that sets the ideal, that determines his/her self-identity. It is you who defines yourself. If you define yourself as ‘an authentic person’ then it is you who would live up to that self-image in order to fulfill your self-concept, and thus be a highly-moral individual.

In my work I make the point that Ethics begins with the perspective that every individual is of uncountably high value. {I admit that that this proposition may seem to some as counter-intuitive. So also are many physical science concepts. This fact has not deterred technological progress. Isn’t it time we observed such progress in the moral field?}

Here is the rational argument for the claim: Any single individual has more features than you or I can count, since each of his/her myriad properties has its own (long list of) properties. The amount of value, by definition and by observation, is based on the amount of properties. Thus we may conclude:

We would have an ethical world if the vast majority - as a result of education - believed strongly that: One individual is worth billions of billions in value. Let’s take that as our assumption - our hypothesis to be fulfilled - and see what would happen.

The first principle of Ethics is respect: respect for other individuals and respect for yourself. If you respect another person you will not want to do anything that will cause him harm; you will use words that heal rather than words that hurt. You will avoid any actions that could be considered abuse of that person. You will do all you can to provide opportunity for others to flourish. You will perform acts of kindness. You will be courteous and civil. And you will extend your ethical radius, and become more inclusive. {Of course I am aware that the psychopath is a special case, one with brain damage, and do not expect that respect will prevent a violent psychopath from committing a crime; but even this individual ought to get our compassion. And if one has none to give, one is bordering on psychopathy or sociopathy oneself.}

If you have self-respect you will strive to avoid hypocrisy, corruption, and selfishness. you will have some self-discipline, you will not easily yield to temptations, you will avoid self-abuse (such as taking drugs), you will watch your health, eat healthily, exercise, make sure you get plenty of sleep, etc. You will ask to take on some responsibility and be accountable for it. You will observe the Principle of Moral Consistency: you won’t have one standard for others and another standard for yourself. You won’t be a phony; and will avoid double standards. You will seek nonviolent solutions to any human relations problem.

You will seek to create value in each situation in which you find yourself. (You’ll want to be a creator.) You will understand the Logical Existential Hierarchy of Value: Life and Love trumps Materialism and worldly matters; and worldly concerns and practical considerations trumps ideologies and systems. (All the systems and dogmas in the world are not worth one material thing, and all the things in the world are not worth one human life.)

Earlier I asked, What would happen if people lived by the Ethical perspective which arises when each individual is seen as of uncountably-high value. There are social-ethical implications. Let me list a few:

It would turn out that we would treasure people more, and thus, as a way of applying ethics to life, would have active campaigns to feed the hungry, defend the children, get rid of spousal abuse. Also we would teach kids in elementary schools how to live nonviolently …. how not to have violent arguments, how to cope with bullies and what to do if picked on. Wouldn’t we?

Yes, we would. Because if we care, and care enough, our priorities would be straight. For example, we would urge the entire Congress in the U.S.A. to pass the Youth Promise Act. We would also likely encourage the immediate passage of that bill which in lingering in Congress to set up a Peace Department to counterbalance the War Department (now know euphemistically as “the Defense Department.”)

We would sign as-air-tight-as-possible Mutual Nonaggression Pacts with every nation on earth. We would unilaterally scrap all our mass-destruction weapons (except one teeny one) to set a good example for the world, and make a big noise about our doing it …thus reducing drastically the threat level of an unintended accident. We would study the arts of peace as actively as we now study war. Etc., etc.

What do you think about all this? Post a comment.

What I said above is not quite all there is to it – but that’s a pretty-good start.
To learn more about the new paradigm for ethics, see the PDF files (safe to open): - LIVING THE GOOD LIFE - http://tinyurl.com/28mtn56

A UNIFIED THEORY OF ETHICS - http://tinyurl.com/27pzhbf

ETHICAL ADVENTURES - http://tinyurl.com/27pzhbf

and the paper, ETHICAL EXPLORATIONS - http://tinyurl.com/22ohd2x

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Though, I don’t think my research or words are as nearly
profound but I would like a chance to try.
If its ok. :slight_smile:

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On the contrary, your words and research are as profound, or even more profound, as mine.

There are no new ideas …just new ways of phrasing them. It is very hard to be original: I borrow from everywhere freely and shamelessly. Wayne Dyer, for example, took the ideas for his first book, YOUR ERRONEOUS ZONES, from Albert Ellis, who got his best concepts from Epictetus, who in turn took them from Zeno of Tarsus, who learned a thing or two from Zeno of Citium, etc.

I registered at the new site you suggest and will share my scribblings with the members and guests there. Thanks for the lead. I hope and trust the administrators there will be as open-minded, and as generous, as the administrators here, and will permit me to post my links to the documents, as I was able to do here, so I won’t have to repeat everything already handily available.

Did you open any of the links, and read any of my essays, and if you did study them, what impressions do you have, or suggestions for improvement?

Yours for Ethics,
Dr. Katz

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thinkdr - I have been perusing some of the material you have linked to. I must admit, i find it incoherent. Perhaps you can explain. The example of the house, for instance.

While an architect may call the plan a house, it is not a house at all. It’s a plan for a house. Later, when the house is built, he may refer to that house as a house, which only makes sense. But plans are not houses. A plan shares no attributes with a house - a plan my be on a computer program, for instance, and most commonly is, now. Plans are not even 3-dimensional, in that they can exists without ever being put on 3 dimensional paper. They are, in fact, never 3D, as plans are purely abstractions. I cannot understand what attributes are shared between a plan for a house and a house that has been built. Can you elucidate?

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:slight_smile:

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(emphasis added).

Greetings, Faust

Yes, I can elucidate. A plan for a house is a house in the mind; it is a schema. That is why it is properly classified as only a Systemic Value. Haven’t you ever imagined something that is not yet actual that you described it by the word that the actuality would have assigned to it? Have you ever, for example, looked at the figure for your net worth, on the books, and said: “This is my money.” Has anyone ever shown their friend a picture of a car (he intends soon to buy), saying: “This is my new car !” You admit that "an architect may call the plan ‘a house’. That is all I was referring to.

I’ll be happy to respond to any other questions that you, or any reader, may have.

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Okay, so I draw house plans as a hobby, without the intention of building the houses. Can you explain the three categories in this context - Systemic, Extrinsic and Intrinsic Value? Can you walk me through the process of assigning those different kinds of values to my house plans?

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If I refer to a person on tv, as I do here, I refer to a person (on tv). I do not refer to the electrons, fotons and, my retina, my brain, etc, but run with the idea of the person, which is evoked by what looks like a person being visible to me, on tv. In this sense I can understand why a plan of a house can be referred to as a house - as an idea.

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It appears that the First Principle of Ethics is other minds, in conjunction with something else. Because you already presumed others, but one can be an egoist in ethics.

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Greetings, Faust - and thanks for a good question.

  1. Intrinsic Value ( I-value ) is well-defined as that value which has in its intension a number of attributes (property-names) which are equivalent to the continuum (the number of points between zero and one on a line). [size=85] {The intension is the set of descriptors describing it} The cardinality of this segment on the values spectrum is aleph-sub-one (from the mathematics of the transfinite by Georg Cantor.) My use of the term ‘Intrinsic’ does not refer, except by connotation, to any inherent qualities.[/size]

Value, itself, Value-in-general, Value with a capital V, is defined as: the intension of all intensions similar to one another —in analogy to how Bertrand Russell defined Number., viz., the extension of all extensions similar to one another.

An individual value is, by the formal definition of the term “value”, a one-one correspondence between the intension of (the meaning of) a concept and an exemplar of the concept’s properties. As I said earlier, trying to put it in plainer language, it is a match between the actual x, and its ideal (its intensional attributes - its predicates.) Every concept has an intension and an extension. A member of the class of extension is called: an example, an instance, a case, a referent. When the properties perceived in the referent match the intension of the referent’s concept, in the valuer’s head, he is likely to consider that referent, that particular x, to be “valuable” or “to have value.” The term “value” I have been using is a reification of that process.

  1. Applications of Intrinsic valuation are given, by the value scientists, a nondenumerable cardinality; in that sense they are quantifiable. [size=85]In practical daily life the exact amount of value-added does not have to be determined any more does the amount of points one attempts to score when one brags “Mine is bigger than yours” or “You forgot to shut that light” or “I took out the garbage, and you didn’t !”[/size]

  2. When a specific value itself, such as Systemic Value, ( S-value ), is evaluated, as a value, since it was assigned, by definition, the cardinality n, (for finite), it is seen that it is less in meaning than any Extrinsic Value (E-value). E-value is defined as having an aleph-null size meaning - that is to say, a countable number of predicates in its intension. So E-Value is better, as value, than S-Value. For “better” means “more valuable” or “having more meaning.” [The definition for better was argued for and explained in this thread: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=179067 ]

In the same manner, I-Value is better, as a value, than any E-Value …by a quantum leap, because a nondenumerble infinity is infinitely-greater in size than a denumerable one. These are trans-finite numbers we are dealing with here; they are most appropriate, it seems to me, for dealing with such large meanings. Value, as you know, is a function of meaning: the more meaningful something is, the more valuable it is. [However meaning and value are not synonymous.] Meaning serves as the measure. Thus measurement is introduced into a field that formerly had none.

When the theory is fittingly applied in practice it should hopefully fit the data. The data does comprise people’s rankings, prize-ings, ratings, and evaluations in everyday life, true.[size=85][How they actually evaluate in practice is for the study of Psychology to expound upon; just as they do with regard to beliefs.][/size] In the original post I mentioned the Logical Existential Hierarchy of Value, and I gave some examples of its application. This logical pyramid, in symbols, reads: I > E > S. Now (in points 1,2, and 3 above) we have explained why this is a true formula. The value dimensions themselves were valued, as anything else can be valued, and this is what resulted.

I believe we can agree that it is important to distinguish between the formal definitions of the terms employed - which I failed to make clear earlier - and some conventional unanalyzed dictionary-meanings. In a dictionary a word often is defined by giving synonyms of it I have attempted to introduce a bit of exactitude, to dispel vagueness and possible ambiguity.

All humans won’t come to the same value, nor will they perform the same calculations. And not all flowers are identical. This does not prevent the Botanist from doing her work. The same holds for the value scientist. S/he develops a theory, and rules of interpretation (bridge laws), and leaves it to the technologists to design better applications.

I hope this speaks to your concern.

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it does not. I am asking how this applies to a house plan that i have drawn, for a house that i have no intention of building.

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One can be. But not in the Unified Theory of Ethics, a link to which was given at the end of the original post in this thread. In the new paradigm, in Ethics, the discipline, the systematic body of knowledge intended to add to the useful information in this world, one acknowledges the presence of others, and shows deference to it. For further study, and to see the assumption I start with, see this document: http://tinyurl.com/24cs9y7

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One does not need this moral framework you link to, one may always be an egoist, amongst other things.

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Hi, ZenKitty

Are you an egoist? If you are, do you acknowledge the existence of other minds (as correlates of other brains, in other bodies)? Or do you just imagine the entire world ‘out there’? And {even though, in a sense, I feel at one with you.} are you just communicating with yourself here, and not with me?? Do you hold with Bishop Berkley that we are all figments in the mind of God? Or just what…?

Many philosophers, including yours truly, find Egoism to be “not interesting”, rather dull and vacuous. Even useless.

Do you have a theory of Ethics? And by what criteria is it better than the Hartman/Katz one that I have presented as a way of systematically and coherently ordering and explaining some of the data of ethics? If it is not better, or as good, then why not adopt the superior one …as sketchy as it is. It’s a beginning in bringing in a little order out of the chaos. There’s an old adage to the effect: “If you’re going to challenge the woodsman, bring along your axe.”

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Human motives and intentions are very hard to determine, as any trial lawyer can tell us. So I have no analysis as to your intentions …whether you are going to build or not. What I can tell you is this:

Plans and blueprints are most-appropriately considered as applications of Systemic Value, just as are: zip codes, accountants’ figures, financial matters, geometric circles, and ideologies.

If one disagrees, I would ask him, Which dimension of value would you place building plans under?

The “house” was only an illustration, as you will recall from your careful reading. Isn’t it best not to get too hung up on illustrations? If it was a poor example, just ignore it. Think of a better one to make the same point. Be constructive. Let’s create a solid and sound system of ethics that will ‘speak for itself.’ Okay?

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I take it then that you do not know the answer to my question.

Thanks for trying.

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…Asked and answered:

Plans and blueprints are most-appropriately considered as applications of Systemic Value, just as are: zip codes, accountants’ figures, financial matters, geometric circles, and ideologies.

The reason is because their definitions are finite, albeit sometimes elastic. Systemic values, by definition, have a finite number of properties.

I said, “for example” before I mentioned a “house.”

Another example - perhaps one more meaningful to the reader - would be this one:
An airplane - S: as the FAA views it;
E: as the airport mechanics view it;
I: as the passengers (and hopefully, the C.E.O. of the particular airline) view it.

What Hartman and Katz are calling ‘the Intrinsic perspective’ [the “I” in the above example] Husserl (in his Phenomenology) called ‘Intentionality.’

It is a way of looking at things…an evaluation. For the passengers, it is very personal. For the FAA, it is just a number on their charts.
For most people, a scroll of blueprints is likewise; but for a civil engineer, or a building construction engineer it is something else again: s/he may get excited over it. I recall that once happening in my life when I found such a scroll for my condo, on the floor behind a cabinet, and showed it to the head of the village public works crew (who had come to find a clogged-up sewer pipe): his face lit up in a big smile.
He was Intrinsically valuing it !!

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Oh, so a thing has either finite or infinite properties, depending upon at least one person views it?

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Yes, that is true.

Once again, it is phenomenology. You can get really involved and excited about a system - say about a gambling system to “beat the casino.” Or you can be indifferent and bored by it. It all depends.

A psychopath is unfeeling with regard to the pain and suffering of one who possibly others would rate as “a gorgeous body housing a great soul along with a sparkling personality, who has the mind of a genius …who we ought to care about!” :smiley:

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Okay. So can “good” be determined the same way? What I don’t understand is why i could not say that a given murder is good. That is, if I think it’s good to smite an enemy, what normative value is there to contradict that? From what I have read, it seems that, for instance, the idea of enhancing the group is something that a morally good person would do. But what if the group decides that it would be enhanced if i smote an enemy?