0.5.0 Mooted Sources of Value

Version 1.6 March 2013                                      Previous Version

There are many excellent books that summarise knowledge in a particular area.  Just to name a few, covering philosophy, science, history, religion and personal practice:

·                 Bertrand Russell                     “History of Western Philosophyâ€�;

·                 Steven Hawking                     “A Brief Moment in Timeâ€�;

·                 Jared Diamond                       “Guns, Germs and Steelâ€�;

·                 Ian Morris                               “Why the West Rules – For Nowâ€�

·                 Karen Armstrong                    “The Great Transformationâ€�

·                 A. C. Grayling                         “The Good Bookâ€�

These books, as great as they are, are Eurocentric and don't cover all domains of knowledge.

We propose to provide more detailed reviews of the related literature in future.  more

Can you tell us of other comprehensive summaries – especially some that aren’t so Eurocentric?  Click on feedback, or add a comment below, if you can help.

There are many schemes that have been proposed over the centuries to define or categorise values:

·       The Bhagavad Gita suggests that we should do our duty, according to our station, without being attached to the consequences.  Many Hindus, with widely varying other beliefs adopt this as the basis for their ethics.

·       Theistic religions claim that God(s) are the source of value, but we deal with these separately.

·       Kant relied on a single categorical imperative:  Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, wish that it should become a universal law.  Kant thought this imperative was derived from reason, justified as an end in itself, which must always be obeyed.  He believed all duties and obligations can be derived from it.  His hypothetical imperatives apply when we find ways to comply with his maxim. 

·       Wittgenstein initially wrote of language as pictures that can be mapped onto reality.  He thought sentences about ethical or aesthetic matters had no associated “pictureâ€� and hence were meaningless: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.â€�  To him, we couldn’t even talk about values.

·       Hard core materialists and sceptics seem to doubt that values exist.  Post modernists decry any attempt at generating universal truths or values, or a grand narrative as a form of imperialist oppression.

·       Stephen J Gould, in the 1990s, suggested that Science and Religion were non-overlapping magisteria.  The domain of one is facts and theories to explain those facts.  The domain of the other is human purposes, meaning and value, that science can illuminate but never resolve.

·       New Atheists, such as Sam Harris (in the Moral Landscape) suggest that science can resolve questions of ethics and values.  They just assume that goodness is real, citing evidence for the evolution of altruistic behaviour, then adopt some form of utilitarianism – providing the greatest good to the greatest number – then say science can do the rest.

We need to adopt a comprehensive view of everything we know, from all knowledge domains.