Sacrificing Value

ABSTRACT

When is sacrifice – and particularly self-sacrifice – called for? This question turns out to be difficult to answer, for it tends to arise when values conflict, and hence the answer to it depends on how conflicts of values are to be resolved. If values are constructed, and if there is no single right way to construct them or prioritize them when they conflict, though there are identifiable ways in which the construction of values can go wrong, we may be left in a position of ambivalence about what should be sacrificed. In cases of conflict in which self-sacrifice is one of the options, ambivalence may be particularly appropriate. In part this is because there may be in such cases special sources of plurality and incommensurability of values, because the conflict is likely to be between something that is valued by a social group, and something that is valued particularly by an individual who has to consider self-sacrificing. And in part it is because individuals may have trouble balancing self-regarding and other-regarding concerns in the process of value construction. This paper elaborates these complications, and presents cases in which we might suspect that someone has self-sacrificed too much or too little.     

Value Receptacles

Utilitarianism is often rejected on the grounds that it fails to respect the separateness of persons, instead treating people as mere “receptacles of value”. I develop several different versions of this objection, and argue that, despite their prima facie plausibility, they are all mistaken. Although there are crude forms of utilitarianism that run afoul of these objections, I advance a new form of the view—‘token‐pluralistic utilitarianism’—that does not.     

儒学的价值观念与价值系统

在儒家哲学中,价值非仅哲学的一个部门,而是贯通所有哲学问题并规定了其本质的一个核心和辐射源。儒学以人的存在实现为进路,落实到“心性”的论域动态地展示人性的内涵,而非对人性做静态的分析。儒学即心言性,即情言心,将“知”理解为人的存在所本具的智照、定向和主宰作用。其所主人性本善论,规定了中国文化的价值实现方式。儒学循道德和存在实现进路以建立其形上学体系,其所言伦理与价值,则是一种真理与应当本原一体,表征人的生命存在之整全性意义的伦理价值观念。儒家所言道,是在实存差异实现之“通”性上所显现出的一个形上超越性的“一”,其达道之途径,可名之为“旁通而上达”。“旁通”与“上达”两个维度,虽有分判,又相即互成,共同构成了儒家的价值和形上学系统。这一价值和形上学系统,既凸显了一种即伦常日用而达超越的实践品格,同时亦体现出了一种尽性、成己以成物的价值平等精神。     

The Relationship Between Aesthetic Value and Cognitive Value

Recent attention to the relationship between aesthetic value and cognitive value has focused on whether the latter can affect the former. In this article, I approach the issue from the opposite direction. I investigate whether the aesthetic value of a work can influence its cognitive value. More narrowly, I consider whether a work's aesthetic value ever contributes to or detracts from its philosophical value, which I take to include the truth of its claims, the strength of its arguments, and its internal consistency. I argue that aesthetic value does have such an impact, at least sometimes and to some degree. The aesthetic merits of some works help to preserve their consistency, and the aesthetic defects of other works render them self‐contradictory.     

Extrinsic Value

Philosophical Studies -     

Vague Value

You are morally permitted to save your friend at the expense of a few strangers, but not at the expense of very many. However, there seems no number of strangers that marks a precise upper bound here. Consequently, there are borderline cases of groups at the expense of which you are permitted to save your friend. This essay discusses the question of what explains ethical vagueness like this, arguing that there are interesting metaethical consequences of various explanations.     

Intrinsic Value

Philosophical Studies -     

Sentimental Value

I analyse the concept of sentimental value, with a view to identifying its relations with the notions of intrinsic, final, extrinsic and instrumental value. The analysis explores issues arising in the understanding of an object as sentimentally valuable, and reveals a serious tension in the common sense extrinsic conception of sentimental value.     

让·鲍德里亚的符号价值

让·鲍德里亚认为:在一个被生产主宰的社会里,使用价值与交换价值之间的差异有某种相关性.确实,马克思曾经用这些范畴对资本主义的成长提供了一个相对合理的解释.根据马克思的解释,物品的使用价值就是它能满足某些需要的有用性.另一方面,交换价值指的是产品或物品通过市场价格衡定出来的市场价值.马克思把物的交换价值称作物的商品形式.     

Value Education: Eastern and Western Human Value and Virtues

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - The present education system is mainly object oriented material in nature but not subjective or spiritual. We study mainly subject viz. physic,...