Value (ethics)

About: Value (ethics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21347 publications have been published within this topic receiving 461372 citations.

Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics - 25th Anniversary Edition

Abstract: What rational justification is there for conceiving of all living things as possessing inherent worth? In Respect for Nature, Paul Taylor draws on biology, moral philosophy, and environmental science to defend a biocentric environmental ethic in which all life has value. Without making claims for the moral rights of plants and animals, he offers a reasoned alternative to the prevailing anthropocentric view--that the natural environment and its wildlife are valued only as objects for human use or enjoyment. Respect for Nature provides both a full account of the biological conditions for life--human or otherwise--and a comprehensive view of the complex relationship between human beings and the whole of nature. This classic book remains a valuable resource for philosophers, biologists, and environmentalists alike--along with all those who care about the future of life on Earth. A new foreword by Dale Jamieson looks at how the original 1986 edition of Respect for Nature has shaped the study of environmental ethics, and shows why the work remains relevant to debates today.

Welfare, happiness, and ethics

Abstract: Moral philosophers agree that welfare matters. But they do not agree about what it is, or how much it matters. Wayne Sumner presents an original theory of welfare, investigating its nature and discussing its importance. He considers and rejects all notable rival theories of welfare, both objective and subjective, including hedonism and theories founded on desire or preference. His own theory connects welfare closely with happiness or life satisfaction. Professor Sumner then proceeds to defend welfarism, that is, to argue (against the value pluralism that currently dominates moral philosophy) that welfare is the only basic ethical value, the only thing which we have a moral reason to promote for its own sake. He concludes by discussing the implications of this thesis for ethical and political theory.

Rationalism in politics and other essays

Abstract: Rationalism in Politics, first published in 1962, has established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative political theorist in modern Britain. This expanded collection of essays astutely points out the limits of 'reason' in rationalist politics. Oakeshott criticizes ideological schemes to reform society according to supposedly 'scientific' or rationalistic principles that ignore the wealth and variety of human experience. "Rationalism in politics," says Oakeshott, "involves a misconception with regard to the nature of human knowledge." History has shown that it produces unexpected, often disastrous results. "Having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of his society, and denied the value of any education more extensive than a training in a technique of analysis," the Rationalist succeeds only in undermining the institutions that hold civilized society together. In this regard, rationalism in politics is "a corruption of the mind."

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

Abstract: Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa University of Chicago Press, 2011 This book has much to say that is perceptive about today's undergraduate higher education in the United States. It will be valuable to review the authors' insights. At the same time, it will be as instructive to note the book's weaknesses, and especially what is omitted from the discussion. It is a discussion that is truncated intellectually by the authors' close adherence to the selective awareness that so greatly typifies the mindscape of the contemporary American "establishment" in academia and throughout the commanding heights of American society. That mindscape allows a recognition of many things, but not of others. The authors are both faculty members at major American universities. Richard Arum is a sociology professor at New York University with a tie to the university's school of education. He is the author of several books on education and director of the Education Research Program sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. His co-author, Josipa Roksa, is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. That the book is published by the University of Chicago Press attests to its presumptive merit. Academically Adrift furnishes an example of something that has long been common in social science writing: a rather thin empirical study serving as the work's own contribution, combined with considerable additional material coming out of the literature on whatever subject is being explored. The function of the authors' own research is thus often to serve more or less as scientistic windowdressing. The reason we say the empiricism for this book is "thin" is that the "longitudinal data of 2,322 students," while seemingly ample, involves students spread over "a diverse range of campuses," including "liberal arts colleges and large research institutions, as well as a number of historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions," all "dispersed nationally across all four regions of the country." This must necessarily mean that the "sample" from any given institution or program was quite small. We are told that the authors didn't concern themselves with the appropriateness of each sample, but left the recruitment and retention of the sample's students to each of the respective institutions. The authors acknowledge that the study included fewer men than women, and more good students than those of "lower scholastic ability." So far as this book is concerned, however, the thinness doesn't particularly hurt the content, since so much of what is said doesn't especially depend upon anything unique found by the authors' own research. A brief summary is provided when the authors say that "we will highlight four core 'important lessons' from our research." These are that the institutions and students are "academically adrift" (which is the basis for the book's title), that students gain surprisingly little from their college experience, that there is "persistent and growing inequality" in the students' learning, and that "there is notable variation both within and across institutions" so far as "measurable differences in students' educational experiences" is concerned. Following the lead of former president Derek Bok of Harvard and of the Council for Aid to Education, the authors' ideal for higher education is that it will enhance students' "capacity for critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing." These are the three ingredients measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), which the authors value most among the various assessment tools. The CLA results, they say, show that "growing numbers of students are sent to college at increasingly higher costs, but for a large proportion of them the gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication are either exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent. …

A Theory of Value

Abstract: Although ethics and axiology are closely related to each other and sometimes overlap, they are normally still considered two separate subareas of philosophy. However, in utilitarianism, since the principle of utility asserts that the ultimate criterion for morality is maximal utility, the essence of utilitarianism finally reduces to the maximization of aggregate or social utility, which, as I interpret it, is a function of values. Furthermore, in the unified utilitarian theory, “good” is used to describe what has a positive value. Therefore value theory is not only related to moral philosophy, but also becomes the basis of moral judgments.