What value do you navigate by?

[coberst]

What value do you navigate by?

It appears to me that we sapiens need a “North Star” upon which to fix our voyage. We need a reference point upon which we can focus our attention when trying to determine what of value we can and should do in life.

Religion, or God, serves as the compass for some people; for others it is nationalism; for others the guiding value is to own as much good stuff as possible; to others it is power; for some it is family; and I guess there are many other such ultimate values.

I have tried to examine my inner voices to determine just what my primary value is and does it need to be changed. I have determined that, by some turn of events, perhaps completely willy-nilly, my value North Star is life on this planet. My guidance for fixing value is ultimately dependent upon its aiding or hindering life on this planet.

I often speculate that human life is a hindrance to maximizing the ‘good life’, of all life, on this planet. I often speculate that if all life on this planet were given a vote in this matter that they would throw sapiens overboard.

What do you think?

[Ray Moscow]

Regarding other people: kindness and respect (which can and sometimes does include love)

Regarding the world and life in general: curiosity

These keep me plenty busy.

[Eudaimonist]

What value do you navigate by?

My personal flourishing. This is not a single specific value or activity, but a collection of self-actualizing activities. It include activities involved in career, hobbies, relationships, causes, and such.

It appears to me that we sapiens need a “North Star” upon which to fix our voyage.

We certainly do.

I have tried to examine my inner voices to determine just what my primary value is and does it need to be changed. I have determined that, by some turn of events, perhaps completely willy-nilly, my value North Star is life on this planet. My guidance for fixing value is ultimately dependent upon its aiding or hindering life on this planet.

I see nothing wrong with caring about life on this planet, but I think this makes for a dubious North Star. It suggests that we should be perfectly willing to sacrifice human lives and well-being for the sake of other species. It could turn out to be an evil North Star for us.

I'd prefer instead to focus (politically) on an eco-humanism, by which I mean a human-centered ecological approach that seeks to maximize human well-being with the recognition that we as human beings need a reasonably healthy ecology to sustain our lives on this planet.

However, on a personal level, I think you should be mainly concerned with your personal well-being. Note, however, that this may include political and ecology interests as part of the overall package of your life.

I often speculate that human life is a hindrance to maximizing the ‘good life’, of all life, on this planet. I often speculate that if all life on this planet were given a vote in this matter that they would throw sapiens overboard.

What do you think?

I couldn't care less how other species would vote on this matter. We should be focused on our own well-being in a wise and prudent way. This doesn't mean that we should walk on eggshells around other species.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[LoneWolf]

I see nothing wrong with caring about life on this planet, but I think this makes for a dubious North Star. It suggests that we should be perfectly willing to sacrifice human lives and well-being for the sake of other species. It could turn out to be an evil North Star for us.

I'd prefer instead to focus (politically) on an eco-humanism, by which I mean a human-centered ecological approach that seeks to maximize human well-being with the recognition that we as human beings need a reasonably healthy ecology to sustain our lives on this planet.



I agree with you here. The whole “cherish all life” is crap, to put it indelicately. I want a world that is ideally suited for us, humans. As it happens I believe such a world is diverse in lifeforms and ecosystems. But I am for the eradication of an untold number of species of organisms. These include scores of single cell disease causing organisms and countless multicellular parasitic creatures.

[Oolon Colluphid]

What do you think?

I think this would be a better fit for Philosophy & Morality ;)

Which is where I'm sending it. We can always retrieve it if it does take a turn for the biological etc.

[BigEvil]

I often speculate that if all life on this planet were given a vote in this matter that they would throw sapiens overboard.

What do you think?

I think the microbes that use us as food would vote for us. I also think we could get strong support from the cockroach/housefly coalition. Not sure about the plant world but I just assumed the grasses, flowering plants, grain plants would be with us. With a good pr campaign, I think we might hold on.

[LoneWolf]

I often speculate that if all life on this planet were given a vote in this matter that they would throw sapiens overboard.

What do you think?

I think the microbes that use us as food would vote for us. I also think we could get strong support from the cockroach/housefly coalition. Not sure about the plant world but I just assumed the grasses, flowering plants, grain plants would be with us. With a good pr campaign, I think we might hold on.

And fortunately the ones who would vote against us are the ones headed for extinction. So, fewer votes and all.

;)

[Eudaimonist]

But first we must deal with Captain Planet and his Planeteers, because I don't think they favor the democratic process.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[coberst]

Beauty and morality are species of values.

George Santayana says that “all values must be ultimately intrinsic”. He adds that the good, i.e. that which is desired, is good because of its consequences.

Aesthetics is about the perception of values. Aesthetic judgments “are mainly positive, that is, perceptions of good, moral judgments are mainly and fundamentally negative, or perceptions of evil…in the perception of beauty, our judgment is necessarily intrinsic and based on the character of the immediate experience, and never consciously on the idea of an eventual utility in the object, judgments about moral worth, on the contrary, are always based, when they are positive, upon the consciousness of benefits probably involved.”

“Morality is a means and not an end; that it is the price of human non-adaptation, and the consequence of the original sin of unfitness. It is the compression of human conduct within the narrow limits of the safe and possible. Remove danger, remove pain, remove the occasion of pity, and the need of morality is gone. To say “thou shalt not” would then be impertinence.”

If we think about it we can see herein why our moral consciousness recedes as our luxuries increase, and we can see why caring for another is more the characteristic of those who have little and is of lesser value to those who have much.

Quotes from [i]The Sense of Beauty: Being The Outlines of Aesthetic Theory[i] by George Santayana

[David B]

I'm not sure that having a single 'reference point upon which we can focus our attention when trying to determine what of value we can and should do in life' is either widely done, or a good idea to do.

Adopting a single guiding star seems to me to lay oneself open to the extremes of religious mania, or of secular ideology.

Just as well the mass of people don't do it.

What I do think most people do, to put it crudely, is to develop from a complex interplay between genetic potential, infleunces from peers, parents, teachers...the broader culture they live in, from their reading and private contemplation, a number of moral rules of thumb, some of which might be consciously adopted, some of which are probably unconscious.

Some of these rules of thumb may well, in a particular circumstance, be inconsistent with each other, and I suggest that there is a lot of processing, some of which might emerge into conscious thought, but most of which will not, in which the individual in effect makes an intuitive attempt to arrive at the best compromise for action between the competing, and sometimes conflicting, rules of thumb that have been established.

I see this as more healthy, and more successful in making good decisions, that imposing on oneself a single metaphysical 'good', and aiming to make all ones moral decisions subsume themselves to that.

David

[Danhalen]

I'm not sure that having a single 'reference point upon which we can focus our attention when trying to determine what of value we can and should do in life' is either widely done, or a good idea to do.

Adopting a single guiding star seems to me to lay oneself open to the extremes of religious mania, or of secular ideology.

Just as well the mass of people don't do it.

What I do think most people do, to put it crudely, is to develop from a complex interplay between genetic potential, infleunces from peers, parents, teachers...the broader culture they live in, from their reading and private contemplation, a number of moral rules of thumb, some of which might be consciously adopted, some of which are probably unconscious.

Some of these rules of thumb may well, in a particular circumstance, be inconsistent with each other, and I suggest that there is a lot of processing, some of which might emerge into conscious thought, but most of which will not, in which the individual in effect makes an intuitive attempt to arrive at the best compromise for action between the competing, and sometimes conflicting, rules of thumb that have been established.

I see this as more healthy, and more successful in making good decisions, that imposing on oneself a single metaphysical 'good', and aiming to make all ones moral decisions subsume themselves to that.I think you are pretty good at articulating what I was thinking.

We live in a pluralistic world, and whether we like or not we do have to interact with other people. Holding onto a monolithic ideal that guides our moral principles will inevitabley lead to conflict. But by adopting several points of navigation we can steer clear of the troubles before we reach them.

[Eudaimonist]

Adopting a single guiding star seems to me to lay oneself open to the extremes of religious mania, or of secular ideology.

Considering that the alternative is ethical confusion and personal conflictedness, this seems like a worthwhile risk.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[David B]

Adopting a single guiding star seems to me to lay oneself open to the extremes of religious mania, or of secular ideology.

Considering that the alternative is ethical confusion and personal conflictedness, this seems like a worthwhile risk.


eudaimonia,

Mark

If the world has conflicting goods, as I think the one we live in has, to give automatic precedence to just one of the goods appears to me to be confused in itself.

Few people do it though - for all the lip service paid to a moral rule of thumb like 'thou shalt not kill', most people add riders about self defense etc.

David

[Eudaimonist]

If the world has conflicting goods, as I think the one we live in has, to give automatic precedence to just one of the goods appears to me to be confused in itself.

I agree with you in that one can be overly narrow or concrete in one's conception of what is good. That would certainly be a problem.

However, if one abstracts across specific goods to form a principle of the human good -- a principle that may help one to prioritize specific goods since one knows just what abstract goal one hopes to accomplish with them -- then this would be a helpful organizing principle for one's life. Such a principle would also help to rule out certain alleged goods (such as nationalism) that don't serve the purpose of achieving one's ultimate goal.

I charitably believe that this is what coberst meant by that "North Star".


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Valheru]

It appears to me that we sapiens need a “North Star” upon which to fix our voyage.

Are you referring to us as a species or us as individuals?

The former idea is how religions get codified. The latter is more appropriate, I think. Every person needs a PERSONAL north star that has got nothing to do with anybody else.

For me, it's learning new stuff and growing in understanding about the world I live in.

Maybe even learning to be at peace with it.

[David B]

If the world has conflicting goods, as I think the one we live in has, to give automatic precedence to just one of the goods appears to me to be confused in itself.

I agree with you in that one can be overly narrow or concrete in one's conception of what is good. That would certainly be a problem.

However, if one abstracts across specific goods to form a principle of the human good -- a principle that may help one to prioritize specific goods since one knows just what abstract goal one hopes to accomplish with them -- then this would be a helpful organizing principle for one's life. Such a principle would also help to rule out certain alleged goods (such as nationalism) that don't serve the purpose of achieving one's ultimate goal.

I charitably believe that this is what coberst meant by that "North Star".


eudaimonia,

Mark

Yeah, I suppose.

Though there would still, I imagine, be differences between people about what a principle of human good would actually entail.

David

[Eudaimonist]

Though there would still, I imagine, be differences between people about what a principle of human good would actually entail.

Of course there would.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[coberst]

I think that moral values have a hierarchy. I think that we need an ultimate value that is our guide to lesser values. The ultimate value is the "star" upon which we navigate our day-to-day moral decisions. Many people believe that humans have a soul that "lives" after the body dies and it is this soul that is their ultimate value.

Without an ideal value, one that represents the ultimate our day-to-day moral decisions lack any coherence. We have little knowledge of values, it appears to me that like moral values we have no science of values in general and thus we run helter skelter about at every decision we must make.

[Danhalen]

Without an ideal value, one that represents the ultimate our day-to-day moral decisions lack any coherence.That's a very strong claim to make without providing any support. Why does the coherence of mundane moral decision making depend on the presence of an ideal value? It seems to me you are mistaking claims of correspondence with claims of coherence. Coherence does not rely on the strength of one single entity; it depends on the strength of the entire system (a free standing structure). Correspondence requires at least one "one to one" ratio on which to derive dependent entities.

ETA: your concept of an "ideal value" is vacuous since you are using a valuative descriptor (ideal) to modify the term "value."

We have little knowledge of values, it appears to me that like moral values we have no science of values in general and thus we run helter skelter about at every decision we must make.This is another unsubstantiated claim. It is not even clear what you mean by a "science of values." Do you mean the expression to entail scientific inquiry? Are you implying there is no inquiry being done to explain what is of value (if so, you are sadly mistaken)? Who do you include in "we?"

Do you think you could elaborate a bit more?

[coberst]

What is a science of values?

Science is a systematic, disciplined, and empircal sudy of a domain of knowledge; in this question the domain of knowledge is values.

Morality is a value. Perhaps a science of morality might be a good place to start. Beauty is a value, perhaps we can start there.

[Eudaimonist]

What is a science of values?

Science is a systematic, disciplined, and empircal sudy of a domain of knowledge; in this question the domain of knowledge is values.

Morality is a value. Perhaps a science of morality might be a good place to start. Beauty is a value, perhaps we can start there.

Do you see this science as being able to empirically study what people ought to value, or only what people have valued in the past or are likely to value now?


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Danhalen]

Science is a systematic, disciplined, and empircal sudy of a domain of knowledge; in this question the domain of knowledge is values.How do you propose to empirically study values? Is it a case of studying what people choose to place value in? I don't see how you will be able to propose a system which actually looks at value.

Morality is a value. Perhaps a science of morality might be a good place to start. Beauty is a value, perhaps we can start there.Can you point to either one of those values? Show me good. Show me beautiful.

[coberst]

What is a science of values?

Science is a systematic, disciplined, and empircal sudy of a domain of knowledge; in this question the domain of knowledge is values.

Morality is a value. Perhaps a science of morality might be a good place to start. Beauty is a value, perhaps we can start there.

Do you see this science as being able to empirically study what people ought to value, or only what people have valued in the past or are likely to value now?


eudaimonia,

Mark



I see the science of values helping us to comprehend what values are about and helping us to comprehend what we humans are about. Such a science would show how psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science play an important role in comprehending values.

Science is meant to help us comprehend our self and the world in which we live. With this knowledge and the knowledge and character traits we learn from CT (Critical Thinking) we will be better prepared to make judgments that can help us improve our way of living harmoniously together on this planet.

Our educational system has left us with severe learning handicaps. One of these handicaps is to think that we should learn what to think and not how to think. CT can help us overcome this handicap. CT is about the art and science of good judgment.

[coberst]

Science is a systematic, disciplined, and empircal sudy of a domain of knowledge; in this question the domain of knowledge is values.How do you propose to empirically study values? Is it a case of studying what people choose to place value in? I don't see how you will be able to propose a system which actually looks at value.

Morality is a value. Perhaps a science of morality might be a good place to start. Beauty is a value, perhaps we can start there.Can you point to either one of those values? Show me good. Show me beautiful.


I cannot show you what value is or what morality is; however, I can point out to you that only by becoming a self-actualizing self-learner can you prepare your self for these challenges. After our school daze are over we can no longer afford the luxury of placing our intellect in the attic with our year book.

[Danhalen]

I cannot show you what value is or what morality is; however, I can point out to you that only by becoming a self-actualizing self-learner can you prepare your self for these challenges. After our school daze are over we can no longer afford the luxury of placing our intellect in the attic with our year book.I do not need the moralizing. I would prefer you simply defend your assertions or stop making them.

[Free in Freeport]

Interesting question, and really one I should be thinking about.

Due to stress and intermittant depression, I've been functioning in survival mode for quite some time, to the extent I'm not even sure if I have a "core" anymore. I guess "humanistic principals" would be my guiding star, if I had to identify something. I hardly know at this point.

[DMB]

For me the person with a single "North star" is likely to be a dangerous fanatic. I prefer pragmatists to idealists.

[coberst]

For me the person with a single "North star" is likely to be a dangerous fanatic. I prefer pragmatists to idealists.


Just as the sailor at sea needs a coherent guide to reach a destination so does the individual need a coherent guide for determining the weight of various values and that weight is based upon the ultimate value, the value North Star.

[David B]

For me the person with a single "North star" is likely to be a dangerous fanatic. I prefer pragmatists to idealists.


Just as the sailor at sea needs a coherent guide to reach a destination so does the individual need a coherent guide for determining the weight of various values and that weight is based upon the ultimate value, the value North Star.

I doubt that you've done much sailing.

Navigating by the North Star (which I have done, incidentally) is likely to set one on the rocks unless one takes into account tides, leeway, currents, charts, water depth, lighthouses, buoys.....

David

[Danhalen]

For me the person with a single "North star" is likely to be a dangerous fanatic. I prefer pragmatists to idealists.


Just as the sailor at sea needs a coherent guide to reach a destination so does the individual need a coherent guide for determining the weight of various values and that weight is based upon the ultimate value, the value North Star.Lotta good the North Star does a sailor when there's cloud cover. When the skies are cloudy you need to have another means to navigate or you will get lost. It would behoove any sailor to have a compass as well as an astrolabe. Now you can have GPS (not to mention the other options available) as well (but I'd still keep the others around just in case of a power failure). The point is, if you put all your faith in one single guiding light you might get lost when it fails you.

I like another metaphor: don't put all your eggs in one basket.