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Values are a tricky subject in philosophy. It is one of those areas that has no clear and concise factions such as compatibilists versus incompatibilists in the free will/determinism issue. No, philosophical value systems cover the whole gamut of possiblities and beliefs. But what exactly is "value"? Basically it could be considered the weight we give something when choosing between two or more possibilities. So values are used to decide what between two or more things is more important. But I will primarily focus on the philosophical side of values, which usually weighs into value of judgement and not material objects. I will also view values on what helps you decide will make you the happiest since that could be considered the ultimate goal in life. Let's start at the lowest level of values. There are two views of what brings happiness: pleasure or non-pleasure (and I do not mean pain, I mean something that derives your happiness from something that is not necessarily pleasure). Plato dealt with this issue. He said that pleasure is not happiness. It was pointed out by Plato that happiness and its antithesis, unhappiness, do not occur at the same time; but pleasure and pain can. Think of when you are dying of thirst. When you drink some water to quench your thirst you feel pleasure of drinking something but you feel pain from the stinging of drinking something. We have all had this happen when we had a dry throat and drank something. It feels nice going down, but it also stings. But have you ever been happy from doing something and unhappy at the same time? No. If you really analyze anything that brought you happiness it did not cause you unhappiness at the same time. So pleasure is not happiness. Hedonists, and by inference Utilitarnians, believe that pleasure brings you happiness. The seeking out and achieving of pleasure leads to happiness. But there are issues with this. If you read my piece on Utilitarians you will see where the problem lies. But to some it up, hedonism and Utilitarianism can allow someone to kill a person if it brings more pleasure than pain for me and others. This ties into my rant on justified killing. But not everyone believes that the pursuit of pleasure is the way to happiness. When you help someone with something, such as teaching, can be very painful. But when it is over you feel unabounded happiness. Perhaps happiness comes from brining happiness to others. So perhaps you should value things that bring happiness to others over what brings you pleasure. Values are a tricky issue. More often than not what is to be valued over something boils down to ethics. Once you figure out what you can do that is allowed by your ethical system you do what ever you want that makes you feel happy. Happiness is the main culprit here of why this subject is so frustrating to discuss. It is something you can't define; you just have to feel it to know what it is. It also varies severely from person to person, so it is near impossible to have a universal definition of it. |