Most people would agree that adoption is a good thing for children in need of a family. Yet adoption is often considered a second best or even last resort for parents in making their families. Against this assumption, I explore the unique value of adoption for prospective parents. I begin with a criticism of the selective focus on the value of adoption for only those people using assisted reproductive technologies. I focus on the value of adoption (...) for all prospective parents, reflecting on non-relative, non-procreative adoptions. First, adoption can meet the important need that a child has for a family, whereas procreation creates rather than meets needs. Second, adoption provides a morally noble opportunity to extend to a stranger benefits usually withheld for one's genetic kin. As such, adoption offers a unique possibility in which impartial concern for an other can be the starting point for a lifetime of love and care. Finally, adoptions can have transformative power over adoptive parents’ conception of family and self. In highlighting the unique value of adoption, I aim to challenge the widespread assumption that adoption has second best status to procreation. Indeed adoption can exemplify the human potential for moral compassion and impartial concern for the needs of others. (shrink)

This essay begins with a consideration of one way in which animals and persons may be valued as “irreplaceable.” Drawing on both Plato and Pascal, I consider reasons for skepticism regarding the legitimacy of this sort of attachment. While I do not offer a complete defense against such skepticism, I do show that worries here may be overblown due to the conflation of distinct metaphysical and normative concerns. I then go on to clarify what sort of value is at (...) issue in cases of irreplaceable attachment. I characterize “unique value” as the kind of value attributed to a thing when we take that thing to be (theoretically, not just practically) irreplaceable. I then consider the relationship between this sort of value and intrinsic value. After considering the positions of Gowans, Moore, Korsgaard, Frankfurt, and others, I conclude that unique value is best understood not as a variety of intrinsic value but rather as one kind of final value that is grounded in the extrinsic properties of the object. (shrink)

Uniqueness appears to enhance intrinsic value. A unique stamp sells for millions of dollars; Stradivarius violins are all the more precious because they are unlike any others. This observation has not gone overlooked in the value theory literature: uniqueness plays a starring role recalibrating the dominant Moorean understanding of the nature of intrinsic value. But the thesis that uniqueness enhances intrinsic value is in tension with another deeply plausible and widely held thesis, namely the thesis (...) that there is a pro tanto reason to promote the good. It is argued that there is a second, distinct type of uniqueness that plays a more interesting and important axiological role: uniqueness imparts irreplaceable value. This gives occasion to develop the surprisingly undertheorized notion of irreplaceable value. (shrink)

In this landmark work of economic sociology, Lucien Karpik introduces the theory and practical tools needed to analyze markets for singularities. Singularities are goods and services that cannot be studied by standard methods because they are multidimensional, incommensurable, and of uncertain quality. Examples include movies, novels, music, artwork, fine wine, lawyers, and doctors. Valuing the Unique provides a theoretical framework to explain this important class of products and markets that for so long have eluded neoclassical economics. With this innovative (...) theory--called the economics of singularities--Karpik shows that, because of the uncertainty and the highly subjective valuation of singularities, these markets are necessarily equipped with what he calls "judgment devices"--such as labels, brands, guides, critics, and rankings--which provide consumers with the credible knowledge needed to make reasonable choices. He explains why these markets are characterized by the primacy of competition by qualities over competition by prices, and he identifies the conditions under which singularities are constructed or are in danger of losing their uniqueness. After demonstrating how combinations of the numerous and multiform judgment devices can be used to identify different market models, Karpik applies his analytical tools to the functioning of a large number of actual markets, including fine wines, movies, luxury goods, pop music, and legal services. (shrink)

In recent years, permissivism—the claim that a body of evidence can rationalize more than one response—has enjoyed somewhat of a revival. But it is once again being threatened, this time by a host of new and interesting arguments that, at their core, are challenging the permissivist to explain why rationality matters. A version of the challenge that I am especially interested in is this: if permissivism is true, why should we expect the rational credences to be more accurate than the (...) irrational ones? My aim is to turn this challenge on its head and argue that, actually, those who deny permissivism will have a harder time responding to such a challenge than those who accept it. (shrink)

In this landmark work of economic sociology, Lucien Karpik introduces the theory and practical tools needed to analyze markets for singularities. Singularities are goods and services that cannot be studied by standard methods because they are multidimensional, incommensurable, and of uncertain quality. Examples include movies, novels, music, artwork, fine wine, lawyers, and doctors. Valuing the Unique provides a theoretical framework to explain this important class of products and markets that for so long have eluded neoclassical economics. With this innovative (...) theory--called the economics of singularities--Karpik shows that, because of the uncertainty and the highly subjective valuation of singularities, these markets are necessarily equipped with what he calls "judgment devices"--such as labels, brands, guides, critics, and rankings--which provide consumers with the credible knowledge needed to make reasonable choices. He explains why these markets are characterized by the primacy of competition by qualities over competition by prices, and he identifies the conditions under which singularities are constructed or are in danger of losing their uniqueness. After demonstrating how combinations of the numerous and multiform judgment devices can be used to identify different market models, Karpik applies his analytical tools to the functioning of a large number of actual markets, including fine wines, movies, luxury goods, pop music, and legal services. (shrink)

Although material value-ethics was introduced into philosophy at least a century ago, confusion still persists as to what it implies. This article offers some clarification. It states how material value-ethics stands opposed to formalistic ethics, commonly – though perhaps wrongly – attributed to Kant. The resulting analysis allows us to establish a combination of features that give material value-ethics an advantage over deontological, consequentialist and other perspectives, regardless of the hermeneutics issue.

This book argues that contextually sensitive expressions have felicitous uses in which they lack unique semantic values in context. It formulates a rule for updating the Stalnakerian common ground in cases in which an accepted sentence contains an expression lacking a unique semantic value in context.

Design for Values (DfV) philosophies are a series of design approaches that aim to incorporate human values into the early phases of technological design to direct innovation into beneficial outcomes. The difficulty and necessity of directing advantageous futures for transformative technologies through the application and adoption of value-based design approaches are apparent. However, questions of whose values to design are of critical importance. DfV philosophies typically aim to enrol the stakeholders who may be affected by the emergence of such (...) a technology. However, regardless of which design approach is adopted, all enrolled stakeholders are human ones who propose human values. Contemporary scholarship on metahumanisms, particularly those on posthumanism, have decentred the human from its traditionally privileged position among other forms of life. Arguments that the humanist position is not (and has never been) tenable are persuasive. As such, scholarship has begun to provide a more encompassing ontology for the investigation of nonhuman values. Given the potentially transformative nature of future technologies as relates to the earth and its many assemblages, it is clear that the value investigations of these design approaches fail to account for all relevant stakeholders (i.e., nonhuman animals). This paper has two primary objectives: (1) to argue for the cogency of a posthuman ethics in the design of technologies; and (2) to describe how existing DfV approaches can begin to envision principled and methodological ways of incorporating non-human values into design. To do this, the paper provides a rudimentary outline of what constitutes DfV approaches. It then takes up a unique design approach called Value Sensitive Design (VSD) as an illustrative example. Out of all the other DfV frameworks, VSD most clearly illustrates a principled approach to the integration of values in design. (shrink)

White, Christensen, and Feldman have recently endorsed uniqueness, the thesis that given the same total evidence, two rational subjects cannot hold different views. Kelly, Schoenfield, and Meacham argue that White and others have at best only supported the weaker, merely intrapersonal view that, given the total evidence, there are no two views which a single rational agent could take. Here, we give a new argument for uniqueness, an argument with deliberate focus on the interpersonal element of the thesis. Our argument (...) is that the best explanation of the value of promoting rationality is an explanation that entails uniqueness. (shrink)

Philosophical work on values in science is held back by widespread ambiguity about how values bear on sci entific choices. Here, I disambiguate several ways in which a choice can be value-laden and show that this disambiguation has the potential to solve and dissolve philosophical problems about values in science. First, I characterize four ways in which values relate to choices: values can motivate, justify, cause, or be impacted by the choices we make. Next, I put my proposed taxonomy (...) to work, using it to clarify one version of the argument from inductive risk. The claim that non-epistemic values must play a role in scientific choices that run inductive risk makes most sense as a claim about values being needed to justify such choices. The argument from inductive risk is not unique: many philosophical arguments about values in science can be more clearly understood and assessed by paying close attention to how values and choices are related. (shrink)

A distinction is made between moral indoctrination and instruction in ethics. It is argued that the legitimate and important field of computer ethics should not be permitted to become mere moral indoctrination. Computer ethics is an academic field in its own right with unique ethical issues that would not have existed if computer technology had not been invented. Several example issues are presented to illustrate this point. The failure to find satisfactory non-computer analogies testifies to the uniqueness of computer (...) ethics. Lack of an effective analogy forces us to discover new moral values, formulate new moral principles, develop new policies, and find new ways to think about the issues presented to us. For all of these reasons, the kind of issues presented deserve to be addressed separately from others that might at first appear similar. At the very least, they have been so transformed by computing technology that their altered form demands special attention. (shrink)

Family relationships are often believed to have a unique value; this is reflected both in the special expectations that family members have from each other and in the various ways in which states protect family relationships. Commitment appears to set apart family relationships from other close relationships; however, commitment is in fact present in other close relationships. I conclude that family relationships do not have any special value; love does. In the case of families with children, however, (...) a high degree of commitment between adults may be useful or even necessary for advancing children's wellbeing. This could be a reason to give special protection to relationships between co-parents. (shrink)

Persons are thought to have a special kind of value, often called "dignity," which, according to Kant, makes them both infinitely valuable and irreplaceably valuable. The author aims to identify what makes a person a person in a way that can explain both aspects of dignity. She considers five definitions of "person": (1) an individual substance of a rational nature (Boethius), (2) a self-conscious being (Locke), (3) a being with the capacity to act for ends (Kant), (4) a being (...) with the capacity to act for another (Kant), and (5) an incommunicably unique subject (Wojtyla). She argues that none is capable of grounding both aspects of dignity since they are incompatible kinds of value; it is impossible for the same thing to ground both. Human persons are infinitely valuable in virtue of shareable qualities of their nature, whereas they are irreplaceably valuable because of a nonqualitative feature of their personhood. (shrink)

A distinction is made between moral indoctrination and instruction in ethics. It is argued that the legitimate and important field of computer ethics should not be permitted to become mere moral indoctrination. Computer ethics is an academic field in its own right with unique ethical issues that would not have existed if computer technology had not been invented. Several example issues are presented to illustrate this point. The failure to find satisfactory non-computer analogies testifies to the uniqueness of computer (...) ethics. Lack of an effective analogy forces us to discover new moral values, formulate new moral principles, develop new policies, and find new ways to think about the issues presented to us. For all of these reasons, the kind of issues presented deserve to be addressed separately from others that might at first appear similar. At the very least, they have been so transformed by computing technology that their altered form demands special attention. (shrink)

Karl Jaspers’ Axial Age concept is used to depict the way humans interact with their environment. The first Axial Age (800-200 BC) can be typified among others as the age in which humans started to objectify nature. Nature was dispossessed of spirits, gods and vital forces that humans previously feared and used as explanation for the origin of things. Secularised and objectified nature became a source of wealth for humans to use and abuse as they like. This has peaked in (...) the post-industrial era which also introduced the Second Axial Age in which we presently live. The Second Axial Age can be typified by a new approach to nature mediated among others by insights from the side of the natural sciences, especially developments in cosmology, our understanding of the quantum world and new insights into the nature of consciousness. Another development in the Second Axial Age is the emergence of the nonhuman turn, new materialism, panpsychism, the notion of the post-human and theological concepts like the ‘entangled God’. These developments are discussed with reference to leading thinkers. The nonhuman turn is welcomed as it introduces respect for nature which may contribute to the survival of our planet. (shrink)

This paper argues that evidential decision theory is incompatible with options having objective values. If options have objective values, then it should always be rationally permissible for an agent to choose an option if they are certain that the option uniquely maximizes objective value. But, as we show, if options have objective values and evidential decision theory is true, then it is not always rationally permissible for an agent to choose an option if they are certain that the option (...) uniquely maximizes objective value. (shrink)

This paper challenges two main arguments often presented to show that cloning a human being would be morally wrong per se. These arguments are that human cloning would be intrinsically wrong 1) because it involves manufacturing a person rather than creating or reproducing one, and 2) because it violates some claim or right that individuals have to be biologically unique. I argue that while cloning may involve genetic selection, it need not always be a decision to select for a (...) certain type of individual. Furthermore, I contend that the notion of biological uniqueness is inadequate to ground either the idea that biologically non‐unique individuals are morally worse off than unique ones or that biological uniqueness itself constitutes a criterion of moral value or status. (shrink)

Value pluralists see themselves as philosophical grown-ups. They profess to face reality as it is and accept resultant pessimism, while criticising their monist rivals for holding on to the naïve idea that the right, the good and the beautiful are ultimately harmonisable with each other. The aim of this essay is to challenge this self-image of value pluralists. Notwithstanding its usefulness as a means of subverting monist dominance, I argue that the self-image has the downside of obscuring various (...) theoretical positions that do not fall into either the pluralist or monist camp. Yet such positions do exist, as shown by my discussion of Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Near contemporaries of the pioneering value pluralist Isaiah Berlin, the pair, just like him, sought to be realistic about the lived experiences of political disasters and moral disorientation in the twentieth century. Moreover, they shared with Berlin a keen interest in real-world moral dilemmas, which seemed to them to have made traditional morality obsolete. But the three thinkers’ perspectives on ‘reality’ hardly converged, and neither Camus nor Arendt became a value pluralist as a result of their reflections on moral dilemmas. This, however, by no means indicates the pair’s immaturity. Rather, it shows that there is more than one way of observing fidelity to our actual experience and that value pluralists’ commitment to realism and resultant pessimism is not as uniquely mature as they would have us believe. (shrink)

-/- Carefully considering the difference in the philosophical potential of page poetry and performance poetry, Karen Simecek argues that it is only by considering them side by side that the unique cognitive value of each can be realised. -/- Focusing on spoken word poetry reveals the importance of voice and embodied words to the differing epistemic rewards of engaging with contemporary works of poetry in both private reading and live performance. This concept of embodied voice progresses a new (...) line of thinking in the cognitivism debate and unlocks the philosophical value of engaging with poetry. Simecek's discussion of performed poetry also advances discussions of affect and experience in contemporary analytic aesthetics which raise new insights and connections within the field. -/- The moral significance of the differing effects of poetry finds comprehensive articulation through a rich philosophical analysis of the thoughts and affects which arise in particular contexts. Simecek concludes that when page poetry is treated as paradigmatic, this enables reflection in the singular, whereas taking poetry in live performance as paradigmatic enables reflection on what is shared and shareable with others. (shrink)

This paper pursues a value-based evaluation of a variety of character traits which philosophers have identified with humility, and it proposes a novel account of a character trait not implausibly identified with humility which has a unique kind of value. I begin by explaining why a value-based evaluation of various traits identified with virtues is preferable to the more common contemporary counterexample-based evaluation of these traits. I then undertake a value-based evaluation of various traits which (...) have been identified with humility, showing that thus far none of these traits have a particular kind of value that humility might reasonably be thought to have—a nonameliorative value not based in epistemic, affective, or behavioral accuracy. I conclude by developing an account of a character trait not implausibly identified with humility which does have this kind of value. The trait in question is a disposition to prefer promoting the good of others to one’s own good when these goods are equal or incommensurable. (shrink)

This 1996 book is the result of a uniquely productive union of philosophy, psychoanalysis and anthropology, and explores the complexity and importance of emotions. Michael Stocker places emotions at the very centre of human identity, life and value. He lays bare how our culture's idealisation of rationality pervades the philosophical tradition and leads those who wrestle with serious ethical and philosophical problems into distortion and misunderstanding. Professor Stocker shows how important are the social and emotional contexts of ethical dilemmas (...) and inner conflicts, and he challenges philosophical theories that try to overgeneralise and over-simplify by leaving out the particulars of each situation. In offering a realistic account of emotions and an in-depth analysis of how psychological factors affect judgments of all kind, this book will interest a broad range of readers across the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

Value pluralism is the idea, most prominently endorsed by Isaiah Berlin, that fundamental human values are universal, plural, conflicting, and incommensurable with one another. Incommensurability is the key component of pluralism, undermining familiar monist philosophies such as utilitarianism. But if values are incommensurable, how do we decide between them when they conflict? George Crowder assesses a range of responses to this problem proposed by Berlin and developed by his successors. Three broad approaches are especially important: universalism, contextualism, and conceptualism. (...) Crowder argues that the conceptual approach is the most fruitful, yielding norms of value diversity, personal autonomy, and inclusive democracy. Historical context must also be taken into account. Together these approaches indicate a liberal politics of redistribution, multiculturalism, and constitutionalism, and a public policy in which basic values are carefully balanced. The Problem of Value Pluralism: Isaiah Berlin and Beyond is a uniquely comprehensive survey of the political theory of value pluralism and also an original contribution by a leading voice in the pluralist literature. Scholars and researchers interested in the work of Berlin, liberalism, value pluralism, and related ideas will find this a stimulating and valuable source. (shrink)

Hui Shi (370-310B.C.E.?) is a unique one among the pre-Qin scholars. The object and orientation of his scholarship emphasized on “chasing after the materials” or the research for objective knowledge of natural things. He shows a tendency of tolerating and advocating diversity and variety, and intentionally pursuing new and unusual ideas. In certain degree he judges the value of knowledge by its truthfulness rather than its usefulness. As pointed out by Wing-tsit Chan, Hui shi represents a “tendency in (...) ancient China toward intellectualism for its own sake”. (shrink)

Nowadays financialization seems to be an inherent and obvious phenomenon and it appears to have infected all industrialized economies. Within general phenomenon of financialization, three areas should be indicated: financialization as a system of capital accumulation, financialization of business entities and financialization of every day-life. In our paper we try to investigate family businesses that are unique due to the overlap of family and business subsystems in one entity. More specifically, we undertake to find out whether intertwining of family (...) values with business objectives can influence the level of absorption of various finance instruments that are offered on nowadays financial market. Analysis revealed a few statistically significant relationships between perception of family firm objectives and absorption of basic and sophisticated finance instruments. It is the first to suggest, that family firms which are intrinsically-oriented, i.e. those more willing to keep independence or to keep long term survival, are less prone to absorb sophisticated finance instruments, e.g. private equity, venture capital, hybrid capital or they are less keen to become a public company. On the other hand, if a family firm is more oriented towards risk minimisation or keeping long term growth, then it is also more open for absorption of advanced finance instruments. (shrink)

This article demonstrates the unique value of a Husserlian phenomenological account of the affective (or “feeling”) dimension of emotional experience for realizing Aristotle’s vision of the cultivation of virtue. Through an analysis of envy, the author defends the claim that the affective dimension of self-assessment is central to the process of conceptualization by which we learn to apprehend our own emotional responses. Analytic conceptual analyses that dismiss the subjective, affective correlate of emotional experiences, therefore, fail to take seriously (...) what is involved in learning from one's mistakes. (shrink)

This unique textbook states and proves all the major theorems of many-valued propositional logic and provides the reader with the most recent developments and trends, including applications to adaptive error-correcting binary search. The book is suitable for self-study, making the basic tools of many-valued logic accessible to students and scientists with a basic mathematical knowledge who are interested in the mathematical treatment of uncertain information. Stressing the interplay between algebra and logic, the book contains material never before published, such (...) as a simple proof of the completeness theorem and of the equivalence between Chang's MV algebras and Abelian lattice-ordered groups with unit - a necessary prerequisite for the incorporation of a genuine addition operation into fuzzy logic. Readers interested in fuzzy control are provided with a rich deductive system in which one can define fuzzy partitions, just as Boolean partitions can be defined and computed in classical logic. Detailed bibliographic remarks at the end of each chapter and an extensive bibliography lead the reader on to further specialised topics. (shrink)

The modal interpretation of quantum theory ascribes at each instant physical magnitudes with definite values to quantum systems. Starting from certain natural requirements, I determine unique solutions for the evolution of these possessed magnitudes in free systems and in special cases of interacting systems. The evolution is given in terms of transition probabilities that relate the values of the possessed magnitudes at one instant to the values at a second instant. I also determine a joint property ascription to a (...) composite system and its separate subsystems. Finally, I give a proof that the predictions of the modal interpretation with respect to measurement outcomes agree with the predictions of the standard interpretation. (shrink)

Free speech has been a historically volatile issue in higher education. In recent years, however, there has been a surge of progressive censorship on campus. This wave of censorship has been characterized by the explosive growth of such policies as "trigger warnings" for course materials; "safe spaces" where students are protected from speech they consider harmful or distressing; "micro-aggression" policies that often strongly discourage the use of words that might offend sensitive individuals; new "bias-reporting" programs that consist of different degrees (...) of campus surveillance; the "dis-invitation" of a growing list of speakers, including many in the mainstream of American politics and values; and the prominent "shouting down" or disruption of speakers deemed inconsistent with progressive ideology. Not to be outdone, external forces on the right are now engaging in social media bullying of speakers and teachers whose views upset them. The essays in this collection, written by prominent philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, and legal scholars, examine the issues at the forefront of the crisis of free speech in higher education. The contributors address the broader historical, cultural, legal, and normative contexts of the current crisis, and take care to analyze the role of "due process" in protecting academic freedom and individuals accused of misconduct. Additionally, the volume is unique in that it advances practical remedies to campus censorship, as the editors and many of the contributors have participated in movements to remedy limitations on free speech and open inquiry. The Value and Limits of Academic Speech will educate academic professionals and informed citizens about the phenomenon of progressive censorship and its implications for higher education and the republic. (shrink)

Abstract: Knowledge requires more than mere true belief, and we also tend to think it is more valuable. I explain the added value that knowledge contributes if its extra ingredient beyond true belief is tracking . I show that the tracking conditions are the unique conditions on knowledge that achieve for those who fulfill them a strict Nash Equilibrium and an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy in what I call the True Belief Game. The added value of these properties, (...) intuitively, includes preparedness and an expectation of survival advantage. On this view knowledge is valuable not because knowledge persists but because it makes the bearer more likely to maintain an appropriate belief state—possibly nonbelief—through time and changing circumstances. When Socrates concluded that knowledge of the road to Larissa was no more valuable than true belief for the purpose of getting to Larissa, he did not take into account that one might want to be prepared for a possible meeting with a misleading sophist along the way, or for the possibility of road work. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to study a particular family of non-deterministic semantics for modal logics that has eight truth-values. These eight-valued semantics can be traced back to Omori and Skurt (2016), where a particular member of this family was used to characterize the normal modal logic K. The truth-values in these semantics convey information about a proposition’s truth/falsity, whether the proposition is necessary/not necessary, and whether it is possible/not possible. Each of these triples is represented by a (...) class='Hi'>unique value. In this paper we will study which modal logics can be obtained by changing the interpretation of the $$\Box $$ modality, assuming that the interpretation of other connectives stays constant. We will show what axioms are responsible for a particular interpretations of $$\Box $$. Furthermore, we will study subsets of these axioms. We show that some of the combinations of the axioms are equivalent to well-known modal axioms. We apply the level-valuation technique to all of the systems to regain the closure under the rule of necessitation. We also point out that some of the resulting logics are not sublogics of S5 and comment briefly on the corresponding frame conditions that are forced by these axioms. Ultimately, we sketch a proof of meta-completeness for all of these systems. (shrink)

This essay explores recent developments surrounding the Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly as they relate to the challenge of technological unemployment. In an age of advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (Al), so warns the philosopher-historian Yuval Noah Harari, ordinary people may become unemployable, unable to contribute to society, and therefore be declared a “useless class.” In contrast to such a dystopian view, futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Nick Bostrom envision a digital utopia, while more realistic optimists emphasize that Al will ultimately (...) create more jobs than it destroys. As an alternative to these perspectives, this essay proposes a Judeo- Christian approach that, independently of traditional frameworks of paid work, affirms the unique value and dignity of all human beings by highlighting the theological significance of human creativity, the balance between work and play, love as an overarching framework for life, and the role of human beings as ethical decision-makers. (shrink)

Are values and social priorities universal, or do they vary across geography, culture, and time? This question is very relevant to Asia’s emerging economies that are increasingly looking at Western models for answers to their own outmoded health care systems that are in dire need of reform. But is it safe for them to do so without sufficient regard to their own social, political, and philosophical moorings? This article argues that historical and cultural legacies influence prevailing social values with regard (...) to health care financing and resource allocation, and that the Confucian dimension provides a helpful entry point for a deeper understanding of ongoing health care reforms in East Asia – as exemplified by the unique case of Singapore. (shrink)

Answering the simplest questions satisfactorily often poses the greatest challenge and difficulty to philosophers. Since these questions concern principles underlying our everyday conduct, the inability to provide convincing answers can be exceedingly frustrating. When, during a career of teaching, John T. Goldthwait was asked by his students "Why is that good?" - in regard to art and to conduct - he realized he had no answer that would satisfy his students and himself. And so, his effort to answer his students (...) became a journey through the concept of value judgments, resulting in his book, Value, Language, and Life. What is value? What makes things good? Value, Language, and Life presents a new answer to these age-old questions through Goldthwait's adaptation of linguistic analysis and phenomenological methodology. By examining our everyday experience and use of language, he arrives at a knowledge of value that can be applied in solving problems and reconciling disputes about value. This unique approach enables us to place ethics, aesthetics, and other fields in which value is prominent on a single foundation. (shrink)

Recently, veritistic value monism, i.e. the idea that true belief is unique in being of fundamental epistemic value, has come under attack by pluralist philosophers arguing that it cannot account fully for the domain of epistemic value. However, the relevant arguments fail to establish any such thing. For one thing, there is a presumption of monism due to considerations about axiological parsimony. While such a presumption would be defeated by evidence that the relevant kind of monism (...) cannot account fully for the domain of epistemic value, an examination of the most promising pluralist counterexamples casts serious doubt upon the claim that there is any such evidence. (shrink)

This study examines adults’ postings of photos of children on social media and offers a unique methodological approach to studying visual data. A major innovation of this study is first, to enact the concept and method of narrative inquiry to the digital photographs. Having applied this method, the study also offers findings about the diverse values that emerge across two specific digital parenting cultures organized via Instagram hashtags of #fashionkids and #letthekids. Values analysis of 500 photographs indicated that these (...) hashtags constitute cultures defined by distinct values of ideal childhoods. While #fashionkids photos emphasized children’s attendance to the photo making activity with stress to their possessions, #letthekids photos expressed mixed values of freedom and domestic happenings with a strong emphasis on unawareness of the photographing and togetherness. While the qualities of childhood images collected in the same period hint at meaningful patterns, the way those qualities interact with each other in distinct cultures suggest that there is not one ideal image that could represent childhood in the best possible way and the photographers’ values very much influence the visual sense-making of what’s being portrayed in children’s photographs. (shrink)

This chapter explores the idea that phylogenetic diversity plays a unique role in underpinning conservation endeavour. The conservation of biodiversity is suffering from a rapid, unguided proliferation of metrics. Confusion is caused by the wide variety of contexts in which we make use of the idea of biodiversity. Characterisations of biodiversity range from all-variety-at-all-levels down to variety with respect to single variables relevant to very specific conservation contexts. Accepting biodiversity as the sum of a large number of individual measures (...) results in an empirically intractable framework. However, large-scale decisions cannot be based on biodiversity variables inferred from local conservation imperatives because the variables relevant to the many systems being compared would be incommensurate with one another. We therefore need some general conception of biodiversity that would make tractable such large-scale environmental decision-marking. We categorise the large array of strategies for the measurement of biodiversity into four broad groups for consideration as general measures of biodiversity. We compare common moral justifications for the conservation of biodiversity and conclude that some form of instrumental value is the most plausible justification for biodiversity conservation. Although this is often interpreted as a reliance on option value, we opt for a broadly consequentialist characterisation of biodiversity conservation. We conclude that the best justified general measure of biodiversity will be some form of phylogenetic diversity. (shrink)

Since the industrial revolution, when everything ran by clockwork, people have understood how important it is to live in the moment. But over time our world has grown increasingly busy, and we've lost our ability to truly savour each unique experience and the simple pleasures the world has to offer. Cultural commentator and critic Stephen Bayley seeks to explain what real value is: it's about taking the time and making the effort to appreciate things, of understanding the permanent (...) charm of modest daily rituals performed with care and feeling. Of caring about appearances and meaning. Of being bold in matters of taste. Of fully understanding the source of lasting pleasure. Of making every encounter with an object or person meaningful. Value is an elegiac account of what's recently been lost in the digital apocalypse. But also an enthusiastic anticipation of what we can regain in a post-viral, more analogue and more thoughtful world. (shrink)

The thesis of this book is to develop a theory of value covering all kinds of values, based on my unified utilitarian theory. It is unique and is different from all traditional and existing theories of value. Like the views of most psychologists and decision-scientists, value is asserted to be subjective in nature because value exists only for a subject. Value and value judgment are considered statistical in nature in three dimensions, namely in (...) the dimensions of subject, object, and judge. This theory covers a modified von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theory as an integral part. The three conceptions of utility held by philosophers, economicsts, and decision-scientists are unified. The traditional and conventional classification of value into intrinsic and instrumental, which may lead to confusion, misunderstanding, and circularity, is not used. Instead, a classification based on the classification of good things in life according to the principle of exchangeability and replaceability is emphasized and used. A decision-theoretic approach is taken for the study of actions in life. All the actions in a person's life are for the pursuit of values, and all the values pursued are related, directly or indirectly, closely or remotely, to a life plan. Thus, this utilitarian general theory of value eventually leads to a philosophy of life, which is also consequential, teleological, and utilitarian. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, human and veterinary surgeons faced the challenge of a medical marketplace transformed by technology. The socioeconomic value ascribed to their patients was changing, reflecting the increasing mechanization of industry and the decreasing dependence of society on nonhuman animals for labor. In human medicine, concern for the economic consequences of fractures “pathologized” any significant level of posttherapeutic disability, a productivist perspective contrary to the traditional corpus of medical values. In contrast, veterinarians adapted to (...) the mechanization of horsepower by shifting their primary professional interest to companion animals; a type of patient generally valued for the unique emotional attachment of the owner and not their productive capacity. The economic rationalization of human fracture care and the “sentimental” transformation of veterinary orthopedic expertise indicate how these specialists utilized increasingly convergent rhetorical arguments to justify the application of innovative fracture care technologies to their human and animal patients. (shrink)

Uniqueness implies singularity, incomparability. Nonetheless, as applied to everything within the human lifeworld, including ourselves, uniqueness is relativized. This becomes clear in the tension between “commonsensical” and “scientific” perspectives on the human. Our commonsense approach posits that human beings are unique among animals—unique because of our properties, most especially our consciousness, as well as because of our significance and value. From a scientific perspective, however, the uniqueness of the human—if it can be affirmed at all—is possibly a (...) matter of degree, not kind. Additionally, the scientific perspective prescinds from judgments of the value of the human. To join these perspectives, without giving up on the importance of either one, is a philosophical and theological challenge. A Jewish approach to the challenge is offered here. (shrink)

In the health care professions, the meaning of—and implications for—‘dignity’ and ‘value’ are progressively more important, as scholars and practitioners increasingly have to make value judgments when making care decisions. This paper looks at the various arguments for competing sources of human value that medical professionals can consider—human rights, autonomy, and a higher-order moral value—and settles upon a foundational model that is related to the Kantian model that is popular within the medical community: human value (...) is foundational; human dignity, autonomy, and rights derive from the relational quality of human dignity. Moral dignity is expressed though the relationships we cultivate, the communal ends we pursue, and the rights we enjoy. Correlatively, human dignity is inseparable from its ground, and the relationship between these two is best represented for Kant in the humanities formulation. The foundational model of dignity ensures that human value is non-circularly derived, but is ultimately tied to expressions of individual human dignity that comes from the dignity of morality. Linking Kant’s dignity of humanity to the dignity of morality affords a unique and efficacious response to the discussion of human value. In one sense, dignity is amplificatory, since its worth is inextricable with that of autonomy and the rights afforded to the autonomous. But that isn’t to say that the worth of dignity is merely amplificatory. Rather, human dignity indicates the absolute inner value found in each individual in virtue of being human. That inner worth engenders certain universal rights—derivable from the dignity and fundamental rational appeal of morality—just as it provides for the possibility for a community of beings to seek to live the moral life. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) models introduce unique considerations when determining their epistemic value. Fortunately, existing work on the epistemic features of AI/ML can...

Focusing primarily on papers and books discussing the evolutionary and systematic interpretation of the Cambrian animal fossils from the Burgess Shale fauna, this paper explores the role of epistemic values in the context of a discipline striving to establish scientific authority within a larger domain of epistemic problems and issues . The focal point of this analysis is the repeated claims by paleontologists that the study of fossils gives their discipline a unique ‘historical dimension’ that makes it possible for (...) them to unravel important aspects of evolution invisible to scientists who study the extant biosphere. The first part of the paper explores the shifting of emphasis in the writings of paleontologists between two strategies that employ opposing views on the classical positivist and physicalist ideal of science. The second part analyzes paleontologists’ claims of privileged access to life’s historical dimension in a situation where a theoretical upheaval occurring independent of the epistemical problem at hand completely shifts the standards for evaluating the legitimacy of various knowledge claims. Though the various strategies employed in defending the privileged historical perspective of paleontology have been disparate and, to an extent contradictory, each impinges on the acceptance of a specific epistemic ideal or set of values and success or failure of each depends on the compatibility of this ideal with the surrounding community of scientists. (shrink)

The paper discusses some of the criticisms of contingent valuation (CV) and allied techniques for estimating the intensity of peoples' preferences for the environment. The weakness of orthodox utilitarian assumptions in economics concerning the commensurability of all items entering into peoples' choices is discussed. The concept of commensurability is explored as is the problem of rational choice between incommensurate alternatives. While the frequent claim that the environment has some unique moral intrinsic value is unsustainable, its preservation often raises (...) ethical and other motivations that are not commensurate with the values that people place on ordinary marketable goods. Nevertheless, CV is also claimed to have some advantages and it is concluded that little progress will be made in this area until both sides in the debate recognise what is valid in their opponents' arguments. (shrink)

In a crisis, managers are confronted with a dilemma between their ethical responsibility to respond to victims and their fiduciary responsibility to protect shareholder value. In this study, we use a unique and comprehensive dataset of 223 non-financial crises between 1983 and 2013 to investigate how corporate apologies affect stock prices. Our empirical evidence shows that the stock price response from apologizing depends on the firm’s level of responsibility for the crisis. We find that to protect shareholder (...) class='Hi'>value, management needs to match its formal response strategy with the degree of its responsibility for the crisis. Further, failing to match the proper response is harmful to shareholders: Both apologizing when the firm is not directly responsible for the crisis and failing to apologize when the firm is directly responsible reduce shareholder wealth. However, apologizing for a crisis when the firm is directly responsible mitigates losses to shareholder value that arise because of the crisis, as does refraining from apologizing when the firm is not directly responsible. (shrink)