In moral philosophy , instrumental and intrinsic value are the distinction between what is a means to an end and what is as an end in itself . Things are deemed to have instrumental value (or extrinsic value ) if they help one achieve a particular end; intrinsic values , by contrast, are understood to be desirable in and of themselves. A tool or appliance, such as a hammer or washing machine, has instrumental value because it helps one pound in a nail or clean clothes, respectively. Happiness and pleasure are typically considered to have intrinsic value insofar as asking why someone would want them makes little sense: they are desirable for their own sake irrespective of their possible instrumental value. The classic names instrumental and intrinsic were coined by sociologist Max Weber , who spent years studying good meanings people assigned to their actions and beliefs.
163-548: In ethics and social sciences , value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live ( normative ethics ), or to describe the significance of different actions. Value systems are proscriptive and prescriptive beliefs ; they affect the ethical behavior of a person or are the basis of their intentional activities. Often primary values are strong and secondary values are suitable for changes. What makes an action valuable may in turn depend on
326-585: A hunter–gatherer society or surviving through subsistence agriculture value practical survival skills from a young age. Many such cultures begin teaching babies to use sharp tools, including knives, before their first birthdays. Italian parents value social and emotional abilities and having an even temperament. Spanish parents want their children to be sociable. Swedish parents value security and happiness. Dutch parents value independence, long attention spans, and predictable schedules. American parents are unusual for strongly valuing intellectual ability, especially in
489-436: A "personal economic value" in contrast to its "societal economic value." Personal values provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable and constructive. Values are one of the factors that generate behavior (besides needs, interests and habits) and influence the choices made by an individual. Values may help common human problems for survival by comparative rankings of value,
652-426: A certain manner by being wholeheartedly committed to this manner. Virtues contrast with vices , which are their harmful counterparts. Virtue theorists usually say that the mere possession of virtues by itself is not sufficient. Instead, people should manifest virtues in their actions. An important factor is the practical wisdom, also called phronesis , of knowing when, how, and which virtue to express. For example,
815-428: A certain standpoint. Moral standpoints may differ between persons, cultures, and historical periods. For example, moral statements like "Slavery is wrong" or "Suicide is permissible" may be true in one culture and false in another. Some moral relativists say that moral systems are constructed to serve certain goals such as social coordination. According to this view, different societies and different social groups within
978-399: A characterization of what is good and then define what is right in terms of what is good. For example, classical utilitarianism says that pleasure is good and that the action leading to the most overall pleasure is right. Consequentialism has been discussed indirectly since the formulation of classical utilitarianism in the late 18th century. A more explicit analysis of this view happened in
1141-454: A child on fire for fun, normative ethics aims to find more general principles that explain why this is the case, like the principle that one should not cause extreme suffering to the innocent , which may itself be explained in terms of a more general principle. Many theories of normative ethics also aim to guide behavior by helping people make moral decisions . Theories in normative ethics state how people should act or what kind of behavior
1304-519: A code. In fact, as we have seen in many instances, technology simply allows us to go on doing stupid things in clever ways. The questions that technology cannot solve, although it will always frame and condition the answers, are "What should we be trying to do? What kind of lives should we, as human beings, be seeking to live? And can this kind of life be pursued without exploiting others? But until we can at least propose [instrumental] answers to those questions we cannot really begin to do sensible things in
1467-432: A comment showing his doubt that conditionally efficient means can achieve unconditionally legitimate ends: [T]he more the value to which action is oriented is elevated to the status of an absolute [intrinsic] value, the more "irrational" in this [instrumental] sense the corresponding action is. For the more unconditionally the actor devotes himself to this value for its own sake…the less he is influenced by considerations of
1630-686: A conflict: what works may not be right; what is right may not work. Separating the criteria contaminates reasoning about the good. Philosopher John Dewey argued that separating criteria for good ends from those for good means necessarily contaminates recognition of efficient and legitimate patterns of behavior. Economist J. Fagg Foster explained why only instrumental value is capable of correlating good ends with good means. Philosopher Jacques Ellul argued that instrumental value has become completely contaminated by inhuman technological consequences, and must be subordinated to intrinsic supernatural value. Philosopher Anjan Chakravartty argued that instrumental value
1793-513: A dead-end street. The same point is made by the currently popular concern for sustainability—a synonym for instrumental value. Dewey's and Foster's argument that there is no intrinsic alternative to instrumental value continues to be ignored rather than refuted. Scholars continue to accept the possibility and necessity of knowing "what ought to be" independently of transient conditions that determine actual consequences of every action. Jacques Ellul and Anjan Chakravartty were prominent exponents of
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#17327722444011956-423: A developmental moral compass. For although we have defended general principles of the moral responsibilities of professional people, it would be foolish and wrongheaded to suggest codified [intrinsic] rules. It would be foolish because concrete cases are more complex and nuanced than any code could capture; it would be wrongheaded because it would suggest that our sense of moral responsibility can be fully captured by
2119-403: A different value system. For example, a religion lists an absolute set of values while the practice of that religion may include exceptions. Implicit exceptions bring about a third type of value system called a formal value system. Whether idealized or realized, this type contains an implicit exception associated with each value: "as long as no higher-priority value is violated". For instance,
2282-470: A diversity of viewpoints. A universal moral norm is seen as valid if all rational discourse participants do or would approve. This way, morality is not imposed by a single moral authority but arises from the moral discourse within society. This discourse should aim to establish an ideal speech situation to ensure fairness and inclusivity. In particular, this means that discourse participants are free to voice their different opinions without coercion but are at
2445-465: A form of social growth). Within this Schwartz places 10 universal values: self-direction, stimulation and hedonism (related to openness growth), achievement and power (related to self enhancement), security, conformity and tradition (related to conservation), and humility, benevolence and universalism (relate to self-transcendence). Personality traits using the big 5 measure correlate with Schwartz's value construct. Openness and extraversion correlates with
2608-460: A fundamental part of reality and can be reduced to other natural properties, such as properties describing the causes of pleasure and pain . Instrumental value The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory provides three modern definitions of intrinsic and instrumental value: When people judge efficient means and legitimate ends at the same time, both can be considered as good. However, when ends are judged separately from means, it may result in
2771-457: A higher tolerance for deviant behavior. A history of threats, such as natural disasters, high population density, or vulnerability to infectious diseases, is associated with greater tightness. It has been suggested that tightness allows cultures to coordinate more effectively to survive threats. Studies in evolutionary psychology have led to similar findings. The so-called regality theory finds that war and other perceived collective dangers have
2934-515: A lack of practical wisdom may lead courageous people to perform morally wrong actions by taking unnecessary risks that should better be avoided. Different types of virtue ethics differ on how they understand virtues and their role in practical life. Eudaimonism is the original form of virtue theory developed in Ancient Greek philosophy and draws a close relation between virtuous behavior and happiness. It states that people flourish by living
3097-503: A mean and end-in-itself. Intrinsic and instrumental goods are not mutually exclusive categories. Some objects are both good in themselves, and also good for getting other objects that are good. "Understanding science" may be such a good, being both worthwhile in and of itself, and as a means of achieving other goods. In these cases, the sum of instrumental (specifically the all instrumental value ) and intrinsic value of an object may be used when putting that object in value systems , which
3260-549: A means to promote their self-interest. Ethical egoism is often criticized as an immoral and contradictory position. Normative ethics has a central place in most religions . Key aspects of Jewish ethics are to follow the 613 commandments of God according to the Mitzvah duty found in the Torah and to take responsibility for societal welfare . Christian ethics puts less emphasis on following precise laws and teaches instead
3423-451: A mind-independent territory possessing 1) meaningful and 2) mappable intrinsic properties. Ontologically , scientific realism is committed to the existence of a mind-independent world or reality. A realist semantics implies that the theoretical claims [valuations] about this reality have truth values, and should be construed literally.… Finally, the epistemological commitment is to the idea that these theoretical claims give us knowledge of
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#17327722444013586-436: A narrow "book learning" sense. The Kipsigis people of Kenya value children who are not only smart, but who employ that intelligence in a responsible and helpful way, which they call ng'om . Luos of Kenya value education and pride which they call "nyadhi". Factors that influence the development of cultural values are summarized below. The Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world is a two-dimensional cultural map showing
3749-406: A new country, but the order of preferences is still quite stable. Motherhood causes women to shift their values towards stability and away from openness-to-change but not fathers. Moral foundation theory identifies five forms of moral foundation: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. The first two are often termed individualizing foundations , with
3912-717: A person and defending your family they are called tragic trade-offs. Protected values have been found to be play a role in protracted conflicts (e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ) because they can hinder businesslike (''utilitarian'') negotiations. A series of experimental studies directed by Scott Atran and Ángel Gómez among combatants on the ISIS front line in Iraq and with ordinary citizens in Western Europe suggest that commitment to sacred values motivate
4075-487: A person might feel that lying is wrong. Since preserving a life is probably more highly valued than adhering to the principle that lying is wrong, lying to save someone's life is acceptable. Perhaps too simplistic in practice, such a hierarchical structure may warrant explicit exceptions. Ethics Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy , it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior
4238-550: A person should tell the truth even in specific cases where lying would lead to better consequences. Another disagreement is between actual and expected consequentialism. According to the traditional view, only the actual consequences of an act affect its moral value. One difficulty of this view is that many consequences cannot be known in advance. This means that in some cases, even well-planned and intentioned acts are morally wrong if they inadvertently lead to negative outcomes. An alternative perspective states that what matters are not
4401-401: A pleasurable experience has a high value if it has a high intensity and lasts for a long time. A common criticism of Bentham's utilitarianism argued that its focus on the intensity of pleasure promotes an immoral lifestyle centered around indulgence in sensory gratification. Mill responded to this criticism by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures. He stated that higher pleasures, like
4564-515: A priori fixed reference point outside of conduct, such as in God's commands, Platonic Forms, pure reason, or "nature," considered as giving humans a fixed telos [intrinsic end]. Philosophers label a "fixed reference point outside of conduct' a "natural kind," and presume it to have eternal existence knowable in itself without being experienced. Natural kinds are intrinsic valuations presumed to be "mind-independent" and "theory-independent." Dewey grants
4727-407: A profound influence on both the psychology of individuals and on the social structure and cultural values. A dangerous environment leads to a hierarchical, authoritarian, and warlike culture, while a safe and peaceful environment fosters an egalitarian and tolerant culture. A value system is a set of consistent values used for the purpose of ethical or ideological integrity . As a member of
4890-405: A real good [means or end], between an unreflectively and a reflectively valued good, is captured by its value [valuation of goodness] not just as immediately experienced in isolation, but in view of its wider consequences and how they are valued.… So viewed, value judgments are tools for discovering how to live a better life, just as scientific hypotheses are tools for uncovering new information about
5053-691: A same set of values will not reflect equally between two groups of people from two countries. Though the core values are related, the processing of values can differ based on the cultural identity of an individual. Schwartz proposed a theory of individual values based on surveys data. His model groups values in terms of growth versus protection, and personal versus social focus. Values are then associated with openness to change (which Schwartz views as related to personal growth), self-enhancement (which Schwartz views as mostly to do with self-protection), conservation (which Schwartz views as mostly related to social-protection), and self-transcendence (which Schwartz views as
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5216-464: A situation, regardless of their specific role or position. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most well-known deontologists. He states that reaching outcomes that people desire, such as being happy, is not the main purpose of moral actions. Instead, he argues that there are universal principles that apply to everyone independent of their desires. He uses the term categorical imperative for these principles, saying that they have their source in
5379-725: A small set of basic rules that address all or at least the most important moral considerations. One difficulty for systems with several basic principles is that these principles may conflict with each other in some cases and lead to ethical dilemmas . Distinct theories in normative ethics suggest different principles as the foundation of morality. The three most influential schools of thought are consequentialism , deontology , and virtue ethics . These schools are usually presented as exclusive alternatives, but depending on how they are defined, they can overlap and do not necessarily exclude one another. In some cases, they differ in which acts they see as right or wrong. In other cases, they recommend
5542-425: A society construct different moral systems based on their diverging purposes. Emotivism provides a different explanation, stating that morality arises from moral emotions, which are not the same for everyone. Moral nihilists deny the existence of moral facts. They reject the existence of both objective moral facts defended by moral realism and subjective moral facts defended by moral relativism. They believe that
5705-408: A society, group or community, an individual can hold both a personal value system and a communal value system at the same time. In this case, the two value systems (one personal and one communal) are externally consistent provided they bear no contradictions or situational exceptions between them. A value system in its own right is internally consistent when Conversely, a value system by itself
5868-557: A virtuous life. Eudaimonist theories often hold that virtues are positive potentials residing in human nature and that actualizing these potentials results in leading a good and happy life. Agent-based theories, by contrast, see happiness only as a side effect and focus instead on the admirable traits and motivational characteristics expressed while acting. This is often combined with the idea that one can learn from exceptional individuals what those characteristics are. Feminist ethics of care are another form of virtue ethics. They emphasize
6031-445: Is inductive , heuristic , accidental . Later experience might confirm a singular judgment only if it proves to have universal validity, meaning it possesses "detection properties" of natural kinds . This inference is his fundamental ground for believing in intrinsic value. He commits modern realists to three metaphysical valuations or intrinsic kinds of knowledge of truth. Competent realists affirm that natural kinds exist in
6194-525: Is internally inconsistent if: Abstract exceptions serve to reinforce the ranking of values. Their definitions are generalized enough to be relevant to any and all situations. Situational exceptions, on the other hand, are ad hoc and pertain only to specific situations. The presence of a type of exception determines one of two more kinds of value systems: The difference between these two types of systems can be seen when people state that they hold one value system yet in practice deviate from it, thus holding
6357-460: Is a culture which is destroying itself." Dewey agreed with Max Weber that people talk as if they apply instrumental and intrinsic criteria. He also agreed with Weber's observation that intrinsic value is problematic in that it ignores the relationship between context and consequences of beliefs and behaviors. Both men questioned how anything valued intrinsically "for its own sake" can have operationally efficient consequences. However, Dewey rejects
6520-487: Is a moral obligation to refrain from lying. Because it relies on consent, contractualism is often understood as a patient-centered form of deontology. Famous social contract theorists include Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , and John Rawls . Discourse ethics also focuses on social agreement on moral norms but says that this agreement is based on communicative rationality . It aims to arrive at moral norms for pluralistic modern societies that encompass
6683-506: Is a set of consistent values and measures. S. H. Schwartz , along with a number of psychology colleagues, has carried out empirical research investigating whether there are universal values, and what those values are. Schwartz defined 'values' as "conceptions of the desirable that influence the way people select action and evaluate events". He hypothesised that universal values would relate to three different types of human need: biological needs, social co-ordination needs, and needs related to
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6846-454: Is a social system that shares a set of common values, in which such values permit social expectations and collective understandings of the good, beautiful and constructive. Without normative personal values, there would be no cultural reference against which to measure the virtue of individual values and so cultural identity would disintegrate. Relative values differ between people, and on a larger scale, between people of different cultures. On
7009-412: Is about what people ought to do rather than what they actually do, what they want to do, or what social conventions require. As a rational and systematic field of inquiry, ethics studies practical reasons why people should act one way rather than another. Most ethical theories seek universal principles that express a general standpoint of what is objectively right and wrong. In a slightly different sense,
7172-437: Is an object that is judged valuable. The plural values identifies collections of valuations, without identifying the criterion applied. The classic names instrumental and intrinsic were coined by sociologist Max Weber , who spent years studying good meanings people assigned to their actions and beliefs. According to Weber, "[s]ocial action, like all action, may be" judged as: Weber's original definitions also include
7335-524: Is avoided or minimized. A protected value (also sacred value) is one that an individual is unwilling to trade off no matter what the benefits of doing so may be. For example, some people may be unwilling to kill another person, even if it means saving many other individuals. Protected values tend to be "intrinsically good", and most people can in fact imagine a scenario when trading off their most precious values would be necessary. If such trade-offs happen between two competing protected values such as killing
7498-476: Is better than an unequal distribution even if the aggregate good is the same. There are disagreements about which consequences should be assessed. An important distinction is between act consequentialism and rule consequentialism. According to act consequentialism, the consequences of an act determine its moral value. This means that there is a direct relation between the consequences of an act and its moral value. Rule consequentialism, by contrast, holds that an act
7661-410: Is between naturalism and non-naturalism. Naturalism states that moral properties are natural properties accessible to empirical observation . They are similar to the natural properties investigated by the natural sciences , like color and shape. Some moral naturalists hold that moral properties are a unique and basic type of natural property. Another view states that moral properties are real but not
7824-503: Is changing, but simply that theoretical maps are approximating intrinsic reality. The primary motivation for thinking that there are such things as natural kinds is the idea that carving nature according to its own divisions yields groups of objects that are capable of supporting successful inductive generalizations and prediction. So the story goes, one's recognition of natural categories facilitates these practices, and thus furnishes an excellent explanation for their success. The moral here
7987-461: Is correct. They do not aim to describe how people normally act, what moral beliefs ordinary people have, how these beliefs change over time, or what ethical codes are upheld in certain social groups. These topics belong to descriptive ethics and are studied in fields like anthropology , sociology , and history rather than normative ethics. Some systems of normative ethics arrive at a single principle covering all possible cases. Others encompass
8150-523: Is debated whether some values that are not clearly physiologically determined, such as altruism , are intrinsic , and whether some, such as acquisitiveness , should be classified as vices or virtues . Ethical issues that value may be regarded as a study under ethics , which, in turn, may be grouped as philosophy . Similarly, ethical value may be regarded as a subgroup of a broader field of philosophic value sometimes referred to as axiology . Ethical value denotes something's degree of importance, with
8313-456: Is embedded in and relative to social and cultural contexts. Pragmatists tend to give more importance to habits than to conscious deliberation and understand morality as a habit that should be shaped in the right way. Postmodern ethics agrees with pragmatist ethics about the cultural relativity of morality. It rejects the idea that there are objective moral principles that apply universally to all cultures and traditions. It asserts that there
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#17327722444018476-550: Is expressed through the G20, legitimacy through the United Nations, and efficiency through member-driven international organizations. The expertise provided by international organizations and civil society depends on the incorporation of flexibility in the rules, to preserve the expression of identity in a globalized world . Nonetheless, in warlike economic competition, differing views may contradict each other, particularly in
8639-537: Is found in Jainism , which has non-violence as its principal virtue. Duty is a central aspect of Hindu ethics and is about fulfilling social obligations, which may vary depending on a person's social class and stage of life . Confucianism places great emphasis on harmony in society and sees benevolence as a key virtue. Taoism extends the importance of living in harmony to the whole world and teaches that people should practice effortless action by following
8802-410: Is independent of a purpose to control the quality of experienced objects, the failure of natural science to disclose significant values [valuations] in its objects will come as a shock. Finding no evidence of "antecedent immutable reality of truth, beauty, and goodness," Dewey argues that both efficient and legitimate goods are discovered in the continuity of human experience: Dewey's ethics replaces
8965-470: Is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics , applied ethics , and metaethics . Normative ethics aims to find general principles that govern how people should act. Applied ethics examines concrete ethical problems in real-life situations, such as abortion , treatment of animals , and business practices . Metaethics explores the underlying assumptions and concepts of ethics. It asks whether there are objective moral facts, how moral knowledge
9128-428: Is never their end-in-view. To guard against contamination of instrumental value by judging means and ends independently, Foster revised his definition to embrace both. Instrumental value is the criterion of judgment which seeks instrumentally-efficient means that "work" to achieve developmentally-continuous ends. This definition stresses the condition that instrumental success is never short term; it must not lead down
9291-736: Is no one coherent ethical code since morality itself is irrational and humans are morally ambivalent beings. Postmodern ethics instead focuses on how moral demands arise in specific situations as one encounters other people. Ethical egoism is the view that people should act in their self-interest or that an action is morally right if the person acts for their own benefit. It differs from psychological egoism , which states that people actually follow their self-interest without claiming that they should do so. Ethical egoists may act in agreement with commonly accepted moral expectations and benefit other people, for example, by keeping promises, helping friends, and cooperating with others. However, they do so only as
9454-651: Is not interested in which actions are right but in what it means for an action to be right and whether moral judgments are objective and can be true at all. It further examines the meaning of morality and other moral terms. Metaethics is a metatheory that operates on a higher level of abstraction than normative ethics by investigating its underlying assumptions. Metaethical theories typically do not directly judge which normative ethical theories are correct. However, metaethical theories can still influence normative theories by examining their foundational principles. Metaethics overlaps with various branches of philosophy. On
9617-446: Is one of the earliest forms of consequentialism. It arose in the 5th century BCE and argued that political action should promote justice as a means to increase the welfare of the people. The most well-known form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. In its classical form, it is an act consequentialism that sees happiness as the only source of intrinsic value. This means that an act is morally right if it produces "the greatest good for
9780-423: Is only legitimate when it produces good scientific theories compatible with the intrinsic truth of mind-independent reality. The word value is ambiguous in that it is both a verb and a noun , as well as denoting both a criterion of judgment itself and the result of applying a criterion. To reduce ambiguity, throughout this article the noun value names a criterion of judgment, as opposed to valuation which
9943-443: Is possible, and how moral judgments motivate people. Influential normative theories are consequentialism , deontology , and virtue ethics . According to consequentialists, an act is right if it leads to the best consequences. Deontologists focus on acts themselves, saying that they must adhere to duties , like telling the truth and keeping promises. Virtue ethics sees the manifestation of virtues , like courage and compassion , as
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#173277224440110106-422: Is primarily concerned with normative statements about what ought to be the case, in contrast to descriptive statements , which are about what is the case. Duties and obligations express requirements of what people ought to do. Duties are sometimes defined as counterparts of the rights that always accompany them. According to this view, someone has a duty to benefit another person if this other person has
10269-415: Is reached—a problem solved—reasoning turns to new conditions of means-end relations. Valuations that ignore consequence-determining conditions cannot coordinate behavior to solve real problems; they contaminate rationality. Value judgments have the form: if one acted in a particular way (or valued this object), then certain consequences would ensue, which would be valued. The difference between an apparent and
10432-431: Is reasonable for realists to believe that the best of these descriptions tell us not merely about things that can be experienced with the unaided senses, but also about some of the unobservable things underlying them. Chakravartty argues that these semirealist valuations legitimize scientific theorizing about pragmatic kinds. The fact that theoretical kinds are frequently replaced does not mean that mind-independent reality
10595-438: Is right if it follows a certain set of rules. Rule consequentialism determines the best rules by considering their outcomes at a community level. People should follow the rules that lead to the best consequences when everyone in the community follows them. This implies that the relation between an act and its consequences is indirect. For example, if telling the truth is one of the best rules, then according to rule consequentialism,
10758-412: Is sometimes used synonymously with goodness . However, "goodness" has many other meanings and may be regarded as more ambiguous. Social value is a concept used in the public sector to cover the social, environmental and economic impacts of individual and collective actions. Personal values exist in relation to cultural values, either in agreement with or divergence from prevailing norms. A culture
10921-400: Is that however realists choose to construct particulars out of instances of properties, they do so on the basis of a belief in the [mind-independent] existence of those properties. That is the bedrock of realism. Property instances lend themselves to different forms of packaging [instrumental valuations], but as a feature of scientific description, this does not compromise realism with respect to
11084-420: Is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity. He blames instrumental valuations for destroying intrinsic meanings of human life: "Think of our dehumanized factories, our unsatisfied senses, our working women, our estrangement from nature. Life in such an environment has no meaning." While Weber had labeled
11247-422: Is the only thing with intrinsic value is called ethical or evaluative hedonism . Classical utilitarianism was initially formulated by Jeremy Bentham at the end of the 18th century and further developed by John Stuart Mill . Bentham introduced the hedonic calculus to assess the value of consequences. Two key aspects of the hedonic calculus are the intensity and the duration of pleasure. According to this view,
11410-408: Is the philosophical study of ethical conduct and investigates the fundamental principles of morality . It aims to discover and justify general answers to questions like "How should one live?" and "How should people act?", usually in the form of universal or domain-independent principles that determine whether an act is right or wrong. For example, given the particular impression that it is wrong to set
11573-449: Is the product of value and intensity that is ultimately desirable, i.e. not only to generate value, but to generate it in large degree. Maximizing life-stances have the highest possible intensity as an imperative. There may be a distinction between positive and negative philosophic or ethic value. While positive ethic value generally correlates with something that is pursued or maximized, negative ethic value correlates with something that
11736-437: Is to have a good will. A person has a good will if they respect the moral law and form their intentions and motives in agreement with it. Kant states that actions motivated in such a way are unconditionally good, meaning that they are good even in cases where they result in undesirable consequences. Divine command theory says that God is the source of morality. It states that moral laws are divine commands and that to act morally
11899-421: Is to invent [instrumental] arts and by their means turn the powers of nature to account.… [F]or over two thousand years, the…most influential and authoritatively orthodox tradition…has been devoted to the problem of a purely cognitive certification (perhaps by revelation, perhaps by intuition, perhaps by reason) of the antecedent immutable reality of truth, beauty, and goodness.… The crisis in contemporary culture,
12062-489: Is to obey and follow God's will . While all divine command theorists agree that morality depends on God, there are disagreements about the precise content of the divine commands, and theorists belonging to different religions tend to propose different moral laws. For example, Christian and Jewish divine command theorists may argue that the Ten Commandments express God's will while Muslims may reserve this role for
12225-461: Is to restore authority to unconditional sacred valuations: Nothing belongs any longer to the realm of the gods or the supernatural. The individual who lives in the technical milieu knows very well that there is nothing spiritual anywhere. But man cannot live without the [intrinsic] sacred. He therefore transfers his sense of the sacred to the very thing which has destroyed its former object: to technique itself. The English edition of La technique
12388-451: Is worth having as a means towards getting something else that is good (e.g., a radio is instrumentally good in order to hear music). An intrinsically valuable thing is worth for itself, not as a means to something else. It is giving value intrinsic and extrinsic properties . An ethic good with instrumental value may be termed an ethic mean , and an ethic good with intrinsic value may be termed an end-in-itself . An object may be both
12551-421: Is wrong to break a promise even if no harm comes from it. Deontologists are interested in which actions are right and often allow that there is a gap between what is right and what is good. Many focus on prohibitions and describe which acts are forbidden under any circumstances. Agent-centered deontological theories focus on the person who acts and the duties they have. Agent-centered theories often focus on
12714-399: Is wrong. This observation is sometimes taken as an argument against moral realism since moral disagreement is widespread in most fields. Moral relativists reject the idea that morality is an objective feature of reality. They argue instead that moral principles are human inventions. This means that a behavior is not objectively right or wrong but only subjectively right or wrong relative to
12877-426: The is-ought problem : wants are intrinsically fact-free, good in themselves; whereas efficient tools are valuation-free, usable for good or bad ends. In modern North-American culture, this utilitarian belief supports the libertarian assertion that every individual's intrinsic right to satisfy wants makes it illegitimate for anyone—but especially governments—to tell people what they ought to do. Foster finds that
13040-409: The ancient period with the development of ethical principles and theories in ancient Egypt , India , China , and Greece . This period saw the emergence of ethical teachings associated with Hinduism , Buddhism , Confucianism , Daoism , and contributions of philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle . During the medieval period , ethical thought was strongly influenced by religious teachings. In
13203-605: The implicit nature of value communication . Consumer behavior research proposes there are six internal values and three external values. They are known as List of Values (LOV) in management studies. They are self respect , warm relationships , sense of accomplishment , self-fulfillment , fun and enjoyment , excitement , sense of belonging , being well respected , and security . From a functional aspect these values are categorized into three and they are interpersonal relationship area, personal factors, and non-personal factors. From an ethnocentric perspective, it could be assumed that
13366-450: The is-ought problem is a useful place to attack the irrational separation of good means from good ends. He argues that want-satisfaction ("what ought to be") cannot serve as an intrinsic moral compass because 'wants' are themselves consequences of transient conditions. [T]he things people want are a function of their social experience, and that is carried on through structural institutions that specify their activities and attitudes. Thus
13529-402: The modern period , this focus shifted to a more secular approach concerned with moral experience, reasons for acting , and the consequences of actions. An influential development in the 20th century was the emergence of metaethics. Ethics, also called moral philosophy, is the study of moral phenomena. It is one of the main branches of philosophy and investigates the nature of morality and
13692-407: The norms of a culture , but they are more global and intellectual than norms. Norms provide rules for behavior in specific situations, while values identify what should be judged as good or evil . While norms are standards, patterns, rules and guides of expected behavior, values are abstract concepts of what is important and worthwhile. Flying the national flag on a holiday is a norm, but it reflects
13855-450: The subjective theory of value , the personal philosophic value a person puts in possessing something is reflected in what economic value this person puts on it. The limit where a person considers to purchase something may be regarded as the point where the personal philosophic value of possessing something exceeds the personal philosophic value of what is given up in exchange for it, e.g. money. In this light, everything can be said to have
14018-532: The 20th century, virtue ethics experienced a resurgence thanks to philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe , Philippa Foot , Alasdair MacIntyre , and Martha Nussbaum . There are many other schools of normative ethics in addition to the three main traditions. Pragmatist ethics focuses on the role of practice and holds that one of the key tasks of ethics is to solve practical problems in concrete situations. It has certain similarities to utilitarianism and its focus on consequences but concentrates more on how morality
14181-404: The 20th century, when the term was coined by G. E. M. Anscombe . Consequentialists usually understand the consequences of an action in a very wide sense that includes the totality of its effects. This is based on the idea that actions make a difference in the world by bringing about a causal chain of events that would not have existed otherwise. A core intuition behind consequentialism is that
14344-826: The Ancient Greek word ēthikós ( ἠθικός ), which was translated into Latin as ethica and entered the English language in the 15th century through the Old French term éthique . The term morality originates in the Latin word moralis , meaning ' manners ' and ' character ' . It was introduced into the English language during the Middle English period through the Old French term moralité . The terms ethics and morality are usually used interchangeably but some philosophers distinguish between
14507-621: The French title La technique and tackles the problem that Dewey addressed in 1929: a culture in which the authority of evolving technology destroys traditional valuations without creating legitimate new ones. Both men agree that conditionally-efficient valuations ("what is") become irrational when viewed as unconditionally efficient in themselves ("what ought to be"). However, while Dewey argues that contaminated instrumental valuations can be self-correcting, Ellul concludes that technology has become intrinsically destructive. The only escape from this evil
14670-470: The [conditional] consequences of his action. John Dewey thought that belief in intrinsic value was a mistake. Although the application of instrumental value is easily contaminated, it is the only means humans have to coordinate group behaviour efficiently and legitimately. Every social transaction has good or bad consequences depending on prevailing conditions, which may or may not be satisfied. Continuous reasoning adjusts institutions to keep them working on
14833-430: The actual consequences but the expected consequences. This view takes into account that when deciding what to do, people have to rely on their limited knowledge of the total consequences of their actions. According to this view, a course of action has positive moral value despite leading to an overall negative outcome if it had the highest expected value , for example, because the negative outcome could not be anticipated or
14996-529: The agent. It is controversial whether agent-relative moral theories, like ethical egoism , should be considered as types of consequentialism. There are many different types of consequentialism. They differ based on what type of entity they evaluate, what consequences they take into consideration, and how they determine the value of consequences. Most theories assess the moral value of acts. However, consequentialism can also be used to evaluate motives , character traits , rules, and policies . Many types assess
15159-439: The aim of determining what action or life is best to do, or at least attempt to describe the value of different actions. The study of ethical value is also included in value theory . In addition, values have been studied in various disciplines: anthropology , behavioral economics , business ethics , corporate governance , moral philosophy , political sciences , social psychology , sociology and theology . Ethical value
15322-570: The basic assumptions underlying moral claims are misguided. Some moral nihilists conclude from this that anything is allowed. A slightly different view emphasizes that moral nihilism is not itself a moral position about what is allowed and prohibited but the rejection of any moral position. Moral nihilism, like moral relativism, recognizes that people judge actions as right or wrong from different perspectives. However, it disagrees that this practice involves morality and sees it as just one type of human behavior. A central disagreement among moral realists
15485-403: The beliefs, and attitudes of the students. Members take part in a culture even if each member's personal values do not entirely agree with some of the normative values sanctioned in that culture. This reflects an individual's ability to synthesize and extract aspects valuable to them from the multiple subcultures they belong to. If a group member expresses a value that seriously conflicts with
15648-417: The best action for someone with a good salary would be to donate 70% of their income to charity, it would be morally wrong for them to only donate 65%. Satisficing consequentialism, by contrast, only requires that an act is "good enough" even if it is not the best possible alternative. According to this view, it is possible to do more than one is morally required to do. Mohism in ancient Chinese philosophy
15811-403: The clever ways that technology might permit. Anjan Chakravartty came indirectly to question the autonomous authority of instrumental value. He viewed it as a foil for the currently dominant philosophical school labeled " scientific realism ," with which he identifies. In 2007, he published a work defending the ultimate authority of intrinsic valuations to which realists are committed. He links
15974-511: The common belief—shared by Weber—that supernatural intrinsic value is necessary to show humans what is permanently "right." He argues that both efficient and legitimate qualities must be discovered in daily life: Man who lives in a world of hazards…has sought to attain [security] in two ways. One of them began with an attempt to propitiate the [intrinsic] powers which environ him and determine his destiny. It expressed itself in supplication, sacrifice, ceremonial rite and magical cult.… The other course
16137-407: The confusions and conflicts in it, arise from a division of authority. Scientific [instrumental] inquiry seems to tell one thing, and traditional beliefs [intrinsic valuations] about ends and ideals that have authority over conduct tell us something quite different.… As long as the notion persists that knowledge is a disclosure of [intrinsic] reality…prior to and independent of knowing, and that knowing
16300-422: The consequences of it. Philosophical value is distinguished from economic value , since it is independent from some other desired condition or commodity. The economic value of an object may rise when the exchangeable desired condition or commodity, e.g. money, become high in supply, and vice versa when supply of money becomes low. Nevertheless, economic value may be regarded as a result of philosophical value. In
16463-421: The consequences. A related approach is to characterize consequentialism not in terms of consequences but in terms of outcome, with the outcome being defined as the act together with its consequences. Most forms of consequentialism are agent-neutral. This means that the value of consequences is assessed from a neutral perspective, that is, acts should have consequences that are good in general and not just good for
16626-490: The content of television programs as a service. Consequently, cultural interventionist policies can find themselves opposed to the Anglo-Saxon liberal position, causing failures in international negotiations. Values are generally received through cultural means, especially diffusion and transmission or socialization from parents to children. Parents in different cultures have different values. For example, parents in
16789-657: The cultural values of the countries of the world along two dimensions: The traditional versus secular-rational values reflect the transition from a religious understanding of the world to a dominance of science and bureaucracy. The second dimension named survival values versus self-expression values represents the transition from industrial society to post-industrial society . Cultures can be distinguished as tight and loose in relation to how much they adhere to social norms and tolerates deviance. Tight cultures are more restrictive, with stricter disciplinary measures for norm violations while loose cultures have weaker social norms and
16952-423: The deficient state of cowardice and the excessive state of recklessness . Aristotle held that virtuous action leads to happiness and makes people flourish in life. Stoicism emerged about 300 BCE and taught that, through virtue alone, people can achieve happiness characterized by a peaceful state of mind free from emotional disturbances. The Stoics advocated rationality and self-mastery to achieve this state. In
17115-399: The discrediting of intrinsic valuations as disenchantment , Ellul came to label it as "terrorism." He dates its domination to the 1800s, when centuries-old handicraft techniques were massively eliminated by inhuman industry. When, in the 19th century, society began to elaborate an exclusively rational technique which acknowledged only considerations of efficiency, it was felt that not only
17278-474: The end-in-itself, the intensity may be the speed that waffles are eaten, and is zero when no waffles are eaten, e.g. if no waffles are present. Still, each waffle that had been present would still have value, no matter if it was being eaten or not, independent on intensity. Instrumental value conditionality in this case could be exampled by every waffle not present, making them less valued by being far away rather than easily accessible. In many life stances it
17441-659: The ethical values of the objects it increases, decreases, or alters. An object with "ethic value" may be termed an "ethic or philosophic good" ( noun sense). Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of actions or outcomes. As such, values reflect a person's sense of right and wrong or what "ought" to be. "Equal rights for all", "Excellence deserves admiration", and "People should be treated with respect and dignity " are representatives of values. Values tend to influence attitudes and behavior and these types include moral values, doctrinal or ideological values, social values, and aesthetic values. It
17604-672: The existence of "reality" apart from human experience, but denied that it is structured as intrinsically real natural kinds. Instead, he sees reality as functional continuity of ways-of-acting, rather than as interaction among pre-structured intrinsic kinds. Humans may intuit static kinds and qualities, but such private experience cannot warrant inferences or valuations about mind-independent reality. Reports or maps of perceptions or intuitions are never equivalent to territories mapped. People reason daily about what they ought to do and how they ought to do it. Inductively, they discover sequences of efficient means that achieve consequences. Once an end
17767-651: The field of culture. Thus audiences in Europe may regard a movie as an artistic creation and grant it benefits from special treatment, while audiences in the United States may see it as mere entertainment, whatever its artistic merits. EU policies based on the notion of "cultural exception" can become juxtaposed with the liberal policy of "cultural specificity" in English-speaking countries. Indeed, international law traditionally treats films as property and
17930-511: The fulcrum of semirealism. Their [intrinsic] relations compose the concrete structures that are the primary subject matters of a tenable scientific realism. They regularly cohere to form interesting units, and these groupings make up the particulars investigated by the sciences and described by scientific theories. Scientific theories describe [intrinsic] causal properties, concrete structures, and particulars such as objects, events, and processes. Semirealism maintains that under certain conditions it
18093-531: The fundamental principle of morality. Ethics is closely connected to value theory , which studies the nature and types of value , like the contrast between intrinsic and instrumental value . Moral psychology is a related empirical field and investigates psychological processes involved in morality, such as reasoning and the formation of character . Descriptive ethics describes the dominant moral codes and beliefs in different societies and considers their historical dimension. The history of ethics started in
18256-405: The future should be shaped to achieve the best possible outcome. The act itself is usually not seen as part of the consequences. This means that if an act has intrinsic value or disvalue, it is not included as a factor. Some consequentialists see this as a flaw, saying that all value-relevant factors need to be considered. They try to avoid this complication by including the act itself as part of
18419-407: The goal of identifying an ultimate end or supreme principle that can serve as a criterion of ethical evaluation with the goal of identifying a method for improving our value judgments. Dewey argued that ethical inquiry is of a piece with empirical inquiry more generally.… This pragmatic approach requires that we locate the conditions of warrant for our value judgments in human conduct itself, not in any
18582-429: The greatest number" by increasing happiness and reducing suffering. Utilitarians do not deny that other things also have value, like health, friendship, and knowledge. However, they deny that these things have intrinsic value. Instead, they say that they have extrinsic value because they affect happiness and suffering. In this regard, they are desirable as a means but, unlike happiness, not as an end. The view that pleasure
18745-558: The group's norms, the group's authority may carry out various ways of encouraging conformity or stigmatizing the non-conforming behavior of that member. For example, imprisonment can result from conflict with social norms that the state has established as law. Furthermore, cultural values can be expressed at a global level through institutions participating in the global economy . For example, values important to global governance can include leadership, legitimacy, and efficiency. Within our current global governance architecture, leadership
18908-421: The human mind and culture rather than as subjective constructs or expressions of personal preferences and cultural norms . Moral realists accept the claim that there are objective moral facts. This view implies that moral values are mind-independent aspects of reality and that there is an absolute fact about whether a given action is right or wrong. A consequence of this view is that moral requirements have
19071-451: The idea that an elucidation would ever happen regarding the absolute values of actions or objects; "we can speak as much as we want about "life" and " its meaning ", and believe that what we say is important. But these are no more than expressions and can never be facts, resulting from a tendency of the mind and not the heart or the will". Philosophic value may be split into instrumental value and intrinsic values . An instrumental value
19234-415: The importance of interpersonal relationships and say that benevolence by caring for the well-being of others is one of the key virtues. Influential schools of virtue ethics in ancient philosophy were Aristotelianism and Stoicism . According to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), each virtue is a golden mean between two types of vices: excess and deficiency. For example, courage is a virtue that lies between
19397-411: The intellectual satisfaction of reading a book, are more valuable than lower pleasures, like the sensory enjoyment of food and drink, even if their intensity and duration are the same. Since its original formulation, many variations of utilitarianism have developed, including the difference between act and rule utilitarianism and between maximizing and satisficing utilitarianism. Deontology assesses
19560-609: The level of ontology , it examines whether there are objective moral facts. Concerning semantics , it asks what the meaning of moral terms are and whether moral statements have a truth value . The epistemological side of metaethics discusses whether and how people can acquire moral knowledge. Metaethics overlaps with psychology because of its interest in how moral judgments motivate people to act. It also overlaps with anthropology since it aims to explain how cross-cultural differences affect moral assessments. Metaethics examines basic ethical concepts and their relations. Ethics
19723-536: The means for judging legitimate ends ("what ought to be"). Rational efficient means achieve rational developmental ends. Consider the problem all infants face learning to walk. They spontaneously recognize that walking is more efficient differently to crawling—an instrumental valuation of a desirable end. They learn to walk by repeatedly moving and balancing, judging the efficiency with which these means achieve their instrumental goal. When they master this new way-of-acting, they experience great satisfaction, but satisfaction
19886-421: The moral reasoning of scientists whose work led to nuclear weapons: those scientists demonstrated the capacity of instrumental judgments to provide them with a moral compass to judge nuclear technology; they were morally responsible without intrinsic rules. Tiles and Oberdiek's conclusion coincides with that of Dewey and Foster: instrumental value, when competently applied, is self-correcting and provides humans with
20049-569: The moral rightness of actions based on a set of norms or principles. These norms describe the requirements that all actions need to follow. They may include principles like telling the truth, keeping promises , and not intentionally harming others. Unlike consequentialists, deontologists hold that the validity of general moral principles does not directly depend on their consequences. They state that these principles should be followed in every case since they express how actions are inherently right or wrong. According to moral philosopher David Ross , it
20212-477: The moral value of acts only depends on the pleasure and suffering they cause. An alternative approach says that there are many different sources of value, which all contribute to one overall value. Before the 20th century, consequentialists were only concerned with the total of value or the aggregate good. In the 20th century, alternative views were developed that additionally consider the distribution of value. One of them states that an equal distribution of goods
20375-643: The most "devoted actors" to make the costliest sacrifices, including willingness to fight and die, as well as a readiness to forsake close kin and comrades for those values if necessary. From the perspective of utilitarianism , protected values are biases when they prevent utility from being maximized across individuals. According to Jonathan Baron and Mark Spranca, protected values arise from norms as described in theories of deontological ethics (the latter often being referred to in context with Immanuel Kant ). The protectedness implies that people are concerned with their participation in transactions rather than just
20538-431: The motives and intentions behind people's actions, highlighting the importance of acting for the right reasons. They tend to be agent-relative, meaning that the reasons for which people should act depend on personal circumstances. For example, a parent has a special obligation to their child, while a stranger does not have this kind of obligation toward a child they do not know. Patient-centered theories, by contrast, focus on
20701-476: The natural flow of the universe . Indigenous belief systems, like Native American philosophy and the African Ubuntu philosophy , often emphasize the interconnectedness of all living beings and the environment while stressing the importance of living in harmony with nature. Metaethics is the branch of ethics that examines the nature, foundations, and scope of moral judgments , concepts, and values. It
20864-407: The other hand, there are theories of the existence of absolute values , which can also be termed noumenal values (and not to be confused with mathematical absolute value ). An absolute value can be described as philosophically absolute and independent of individual and cultural views, as well as independent of whether it is known or apprehended or not. Ludwig Wittgenstein was pessimistic about
21027-409: The pattern of people's wants takes visible form partly as a result of the pattern of the institutional structure through which they participate in the economic process. As we have seen, to say that an economic problem exists is to say that part of the particular patterns of human relationships has ceased or failed to provide the effective participation of its members. In so saying, we are necessarily in
21190-430: The people affected by actions and the rights they have. An example is the requirement to treat other people as ends and not merely as a means to an end. This requirement can be used to argue, for example, that it is wrong to kill a person against their will even if this act would save the lives of several others. Patient-centered deontological theories are usually agent-neutral, meaning that they apply equally to everyone in
21353-440: The person possesses and exercises certain capacities or some form of control . If a person is morally responsible then it is appropriate to respond to them in certain ways, for example, by praising or blaming them. A major debate in metaethics is about the ontological status of morality, questioning whether ethical values and principles are real. It examines whether moral properties exist as objective features independent of
21516-411: The person would want everyone to follow the same maxim as a universal law applicable to everyone. Another formulation states that one should treat other people always as ends in themselves and never as mere means to an end. This formulation focuses on respecting and valuing other people for their own sake rather than using them in the pursuit of personal goals. In either case, Kant says that what matters
21679-500: The position of asserting that the instrumental efficiency of the economic process is the criterion of judgment in terms of which, and only in terms of which, we may resolve economic problems. Since 'wants' are shaped by social conditions, they must be judged instrumentally; they arise in problematic situations when habitual patterns of behavior fail to maintain instrumental correlations. Foster uses with homely examples to support his thesis that problematic situations ("what is") contain
21842-479: The practice of selfless love , such as the Great Commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself". The Five Pillars of Islam constitute a basic framework of Muslim ethics and focus on the practice of faith , prayer , charity , fasting during Ramadan , and pilgrimage to Mecca . Buddhists emphasize the importance of compassion and loving-kindness towards all sentient entities. A similar outlook
22005-595: The pragmatic instrumental criterion to discredited anti-realist empiricist schools including logical positivism and instrumentalism . Chakravartty began his study with rough characterizations of realist and anti-realist valuations of theories. Anti-realists believe "that theories are merely instruments for predicting observable phenomena or systematizing observation reports;" they assert that theories can never report or prescribe truth or reality "in itself." By contrast, scientific realists believe that theories can "correctly describe both observable and unobservable parts of
22168-430: The principles that govern the moral evaluation of conduct , character traits , and institutions . It examines what obligations people have, what behavior is right and wrong, and how to lead a good life. Some of its key questions are "How should one live?" and "What gives meaning to life ?". In contemporary philosophy, ethics is usually divided into normative ethics , applied ethics , and metaethics . Morality
22331-601: The question of meaning and values [valuations].… Technique is not at all concerned about the meaning of life, and it rejects any relation to values [intrinsic valuations]. Ellul's core accusation is that instrumental efficiency has become absolute, i.e., a good-in-itself ; it wraps societies in a new technological milieu with six intrinsically inhuman characteristics: Philosophers Tiles and Oberdiek (1995) find Ellul's characterization of instrumental value inaccurate. They criticize him for anthropomorphizing and demonizing instrumental value. They counter this by examining
22494-520: The remaining three being binding foundations . The moral foundations were found to be correlated with the theory of basic human values. The strong correlations are between conservatives values and binding foundations. Individual cultures emphasize values which their members broadly share. Values of a society can often be identified by examining the level of honor and respect received by various groups and ideas. Values clarification differs from cognitive moral education : Respect Values relate to
22657-475: The results of which provide answers to questions of why people do what they do and in what order they choose to do them. Moral, religious, and personal values, when held rigidly, may also give rise to conflicts that result from a clash between differing world views . Over time the public expression of personal values that groups of people find important in their day-to-day lives, lay the foundations of law, custom and tradition. Recent research has thereby stressed
22820-468: The right to receive that benefit. Obligation and permission are contrasting terms that can be defined through each other: to be obligated to do something means that one is not permitted not to do it and to be permitted to do something means that one is not obligated not to do it. Some theorists define obligations in terms of values or what is good . When used in a general sense, good contrasts with bad . When describing people and their intentions,
22983-523: The right track as conditions change. Changing conditions demand changing judgments to maintain efficient and legitimate correlation of behavior. For Dewey, "restoring integration and cooperation between man's beliefs about the world in which he lives and his beliefs about the values [valuations] and purposes that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem of modern life." Moreover, a "culture which permits science to destroy traditional values [valuations] but which distrusts its power to create new ones
23146-417: The same course of action but provide different justifications for why it is right. Consequentialism, also called teleological ethics, says that morality depends on consequences. According to the most common view, an act is right if it brings the best future. This means that there is no alternative course of action that has better consequences. A key aspect of consequentialist theories is that they provide
23309-401: The same ontological status as non-moral facts: it is an objective fact whether there is an obligation to keep a promise just as it is an objective fact whether a thing is rectangular. Moral realism is often associated with the claim that there are universal ethical principles that apply equally to everyone. It implies that if two people disagree about a moral evaluation then at least one of them
23472-423: The same time required to justify them using rational argumentation. The main concern of virtue ethics is how virtues are expressed in actions. As such, it is neither directly interested in the consequences of actions nor in universal moral duties. Virtues are positive character traits like honesty , courage , kindness , and compassion . They are usually understood as dispositions to feel, decide, and act in
23635-409: The structure of practical reason and are true for all rational agents. According to Kant, to act morally is to act in agreement with reason as expressed by these principles while violating them is both immoral and irrational. Kant provided several formulations of the categorical imperative. One formulation says that a person should only follow maxims that can be universalized . This means that
23798-452: The supernatural intrinsic value embraced by Weber and Ellul. But Chakravartty defended intrinsic valuations as necessary elements of all science—belief in unobservable continuities. He advances the thesis of semi-realism , according to which well-tested theories are good maps of natural kinds, as confirmed by their instrumental success; their predictive success means they conform to mind-independent, unconditional reality. Causal properties are
23961-595: The teachings of the Quran . Contractualists reject the reference to God as the source of morality and argue instead that morality is based on an explicit or implicit social contract between humans. They state that actual or hypothetical consent to this contract is the source of moral norms and duties. To determine which duties people have, contractualists often rely on a thought experiment about what rational people under ideal circumstances would agree on. For example, if they would agree that people should not lie then there
24124-455: The term evil rather than bad is often employed. Obligations are used to assess the moral status of actions, motives , and character traits . An action is morally right if it is in tune with a person's obligations and morally wrong if it violates them. Supererogation is a special moral status that applies to cases in which the agent does more than is morally required of them. To be morally responsible for an action usually means that
24287-580: The term ethics can also refer to individual ethical theories in the form of a rational system of moral principles, such as Aristotelian ethics , and to a moral code that certain societies, social groups, or professions follow, as in Protestant work ethic and medical ethics . The English word ethics has its roots in the Ancient Greek word êthos ( ἦθος ), meaning ' character ' and ' personal disposition ' . This word gave rise to
24450-565: The traditional values [intrinsic valuations] of every society without exception, subverting and suppressing those values to produce at last a monolithic world culture in which all non-technological difference and variety is mere appearance. Ellul opens The Technological Society by asserting that instrumental efficiency is no longer a conditional criterion. It has become autonomous and absolute: The term technique , as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique
24613-412: The traditions but the deepest instincts of humankind had been violated. Culture is necessarily humanistic or it does not exist at all.… [I]t answers questions about the meaning of life, the possibility of reunion with ultimate being, the attempt to overcome human finitude, and all other questions that they have to ask and handle. But technique cannot deal with such things.… Culture exists only if it raises
24776-514: The truth and reality of intrinsic value as constraint on relativistic instrumental value. Jacques Ellul made scholarly contributions to many fields, but his American reputation grew out of his criticism of the autonomous authority of instrumental value, the criterion that John Dewey and J. Fagg Foster found to be the core of human rationality. He specifically criticized the valuations central to Dewey's and Foster's thesis: evolving instrumental technology. His principal work, published in 1954, bore
24939-402: The two. According to one view, morality focuses on what moral obligations people have while ethics is broader and includes ideas about what is good and how to lead a meaningful life. Another difference is that codes of conduct in specific areas, such as business and environment, are usually termed ethics rather than morality, as in business ethics and environmental ethics . Normative ethics
25102-840: The validity of propositions, provided these consequences are operationally instituted and are such as to resolve the specific problems evoking the operations." John Fagg Foster made John Dewey 's rejection of intrinsic value more operational by showing that its competent use rejects the legitimacy of utilitarian ends—satisfaction of whatever ends individuals adopt. It requires recognizing developmental sequences of means and ends. Utilitarians hold that individual wants cannot be rationally justified; they are intrinsically worthy subjective valuations and cannot be judged instrumentally. This belief supports philosophers who hold that facts ("what is") can serve as instrumental means for achieving ends, but cannot authorize ends ("what ought to be"). This fact-value distinction creates what philosophers label
25265-427: The value of patriotism . Wearing dark clothing and appearing solemn are normative behaviors to manifest respect at a funeral. Different cultures represent values differently and to different levels of emphasis. "Over the last three decades, traditional-age college students have shown an increased interest in personal well-being and a decreased interest in the welfare of others." Values seemed to have changed, affecting
25428-399: The value of consequences based on whether they promote happiness or suffering. But there are also alternative evaluative principles, such as desire satisfaction, autonomy , freedom , knowledge , friendship , beauty , and self-perfection. Some forms of consequentialism hold that there is only a single source of value . The most prominent among them is utilitarianism , which states that
25591-661: The values related to openness-to-change (openness especially with self-direction, extraversion especially with stimulation); agreeableness correlates with self-transcendence values (especially benevolence); extraversion is correlated with self-enhancement and negatively with traditional values. Conscientiousness correlates with achievement, conformity and security. Men are found to value achievement, self-direction, hedonism, and stimulation more than women, while women value benevolence, universality and tradition higher. The order of Schwartz's traits are substantially stability amongst adults over time. Migrants values change when they move to
25754-431: The welfare and survival of groups The intensity of philosophic value is the degree it is generated or carried out, and may be regarded as the prevalence of the good, the object having the value. It should not be confused with the amount of value per object, although the latter may vary too, e.g. because of instrumental value conditionality . For example, taking a fictional life-stance of accepting waffle-eating as being
25917-437: The world. In brief, Dewey rejects the traditional belief that judging things as good in themselves , apart from existing means-end relations, can be rational. The sole rational criterion is instrumental value. Each valuation is conditional but, cumulatively, all are developmental—and therefore socially-legitimate solutions of problems. Competent instrumental valuations treat the "function of consequences as necessary tests of
26080-536: The world. That is, predictively successful (mature, non- ad hoc ) theories, taken literally as describing the nature of a mind-independent reality are (approximately) true. He labels these intrinsic valuations as semi-realist , meaning they are currently the most accurate theoretical descriptions of mind-independent natural kinds. He finds these carefully qualified statements necessary to replace earlier realist claims of intrinsic reality discredited by advancing instrumental valuations. Science has destroyed for many people
26243-474: The world." Well-confirmed theories—"what ought to be" as the end of reasoning—are more than tools; they are maps of intrinsic properties of an unobservable and unconditional territory—"what is" as natural-but-metaphysical real kinds. Chakravartty treats criteria of judgment as ungrounded opinion, but admits that realists apply the instrumental criterion to judge theories that "work." He restricts such criterion's scope, claiming that every instrumental judgment
26406-404: Was published in 1964, titled The Technological Society , and quickly entered ongoing disputes in the United States over the responsibility of instrumental value for destructive social consequences. The translator of Technological Society summarizes Ellul's thesis: Technological Society is a description of the way in which an autonomous [instrumental] technology is in process of taking over
26569-475: Was unlikely. A further difference is between maximizing and satisficing consequentialism. According to maximizing consequentialism, only the best possible act is morally permitted. This means that acts with positive consequences are wrong if there are alternatives with even better consequences. One criticism of maximizing consequentialism is that it demands too much by requiring that people do significantly more than they are socially expected to. For example, if
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