Philosophy

Marking, JL, but you dropped the Shakespeare quote. <smile>

I messed up, folks. I wanted to PUT this thread in the philosophy forum, not give it the title of "philosophy". A more appropriate title would be "The Nature of Values."

Well, JL. I think you just said it, my friend. The nature of values lies in the environment and in the setting event of our nurture, and there are no absolutes in either.

Have a wonderful long weekend.

I'm not very creative on a thread like this. I have to be more or less guided into making a statement.

Dogs can teach you a lot about the philosophy of values ... If you can't eat it, fight it, chase it, roll in it, play with it, sleep on it, or mate with it, lift your leg to it and move on.

Sure, timber. What's a gig, anyway? Can you eat it, spend it, etc.?

Sorry JL. I had to follow that one.

No, I agree, if it serves my interests, I value it. I don't value it simply because I'm told to. The trick is to be able to distinguish between minor and major interests. My so-called enlightened self-interests will most likely be congruent with my core values. But I mustn't fool myself into thinking that my cultural conditioning has nothing to do with it. It's just that I must take an active role in scrutinizing my conditioning and to actively create ever new values and increasingly enlightened interests.

Re: Philosophy


there are NO 'values' in nature!
[it just 'is', that's all.]

Ain't nature grand? I knew that Bo would say that, JL. You should have stuck with Shakespeare.

"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

we 'create' values (as Timber says) by giving 'value' to, or perceiving 'value' in, something.

and value has a range from that which gives us sustenance - a piece of meat, a loaf of bread, a glass (bottle :wink: ) of wine; to that which defines us, an outlook, a philosophy, a 'way'.

[we 'are' our values]

Good show, BoGoWo. I hoped that question would pull you out of your hole.

I agree that--as you say:
"there are NO 'values' in nature!
[it just 'is', that's all."

Then you add (with Timber) that we "create" and ascribe values in and to the world.

BUT, we and our actions ARE nature; I agree completely that they are not absolutes apart from our creative construction of our World. We generate them; we get credit for them; we "are" our values, as you say, AND we are our World.

Great to see you back.

With that in mind, how should we feel and act towards polar values and seemingly "immoral" actions that offend us. How should the individual in question, who has committed said action, feel about themselves. Should we simply strive to further our understanding of these actions or values so as to better understand this nature or world and to therefore become more in tune with it somehow?

How do we fit these "bad" people into our conception of the world, are they just wired to go against the grain from our perspective? Which, considering the whole etc would simply be nature. I guess the individual can only ever do what feels right to them, generally finding they're backed up by the collective. If we "are" our values as a people, I wonder how, as individuals we come to terms with the rotten apples of the group. It's tough sometimes.

interesting comments, Ashers. I think we should act toward people whose behavior offends our moral sensibilities as we would to anything in nature we dislike. Get over it or just get along. Let me say, however, that I do not equate values with morals. I am my values; we "have" (not necessarily "are") a culture of relatively shared morals and values, but I think we are, as a society, more heterogeneous in our values than we are in our morals, i.e., our society's "moral code" (putting aside for the moment that ours is a very culturally pluralistic society compared to most).
We cope with opposing values when we cannot tolerate them just as we compete with opposing interests.
You raise the difficult problem of social control. Ultimately, I think, society is a political phenomenon wherein people struggle to have their way as much as possible and failing that try to come to some kind of mutual understandings.

Huh. Am I the only one who listens to proponents of values/morals I don't have in my present weave of who I think I am?

sorry, that was aggressive without warrant. Will back off and listen.

I am my values, Osso, but not my society's moral code(s). Some morals coincide with my values, some don't.
I also consider ethics to differ from morals. If anything morals are frozen ethics. Sometimes we must do what the situation calls for as "right" regardless of the rules. Have you seen that wonderful movie, The Cider House Rules?
Situation ethics suit me, as an autonomous individual, much more than conventional moralism--although we cannot live without the latter as a society.

No, I haven't, as I associate it with Stephen King, whom I avoid. Not that I avoid him in particular, except that I avoid sensationalistic best sellers, for my own time. I understand from some commentary that I may be out in left field on that.

Or am I wrong that he wrote Cider House Blues? (maybe I have a few things to learn)

He didn't write Ciderhouse Rules, by no stretch of the imagination.

So, who did?