Standard

“ The upholding of a standard must be allied with material interests if it is to be repressive of creation and novelty. But, as a free force, operating solely by influence, the standard has the effect only of keeping alive the love of excellence, and, by providing some stability in the old, creating that contrast between the new and the old, so stimulating to the new itself. ”

“ Then, in the name of God, of manhood, of common sense, say it, directly, positively, assertively, as is your right, remembering the assurance of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." Don't worry about whether you are saying it in the genteel fashion of some one else's standard. Make your own standard. Even the standards of the grammar books and dictionaries are not equal to that of a man who has something to say and says it forcefully, truthfully, pointedly, directly. ”

“ At present I am content with the indirect proof that the existence of such a standard is necessary to the existence of the arts. The standard or measure, which we are now only applying to the arts, may be some day required with a view to the demonstration of absolute truth. ”

“ A standard remains fixed only until a more perfect standard displaces it. The data from which the standard was derived may be reviewed because of some error, because a further subdivision of the elements studied may prove possible, or because improvements in some factor of the work, i.e., the worker, material, tools, equipment, etc., may make a new standard desirable. ”

“ We have had to reject the idea that a standard of excellence can either be extracted by critical analysis from the practice of accepted models, or that it can be based on the consensus of experts, or upon universal suffrage. ”

“ If they judge of equality, or any other proportion, by the accurate and exact standard, viz. the enumeration of the minute indivisible parts, they both employ a standard, which is useless in practice, and actually establish the indivisibility of extension, which they endeavour to explode. ”

“ The original standard of a right line is in reality nothing but a certain general appearance; and 'tis evident right lines may be made to concur with each other, and yet correspond to this standard, though corrected by all the means either practicable or imaginable. ”

“ When a deviation from analogy has become the universal practice of a nation, it then takes place of all rules and becomes the standard of propriety.
The two points therefore, which I conceive to be the basis of a standard in speaking, are these; universal undisputed practice, and the principle of analogy. Universal practice is generally, perhaps always, a rule of propriety; and in disputed points, where people differ in opinion and practice, analogy should always decide the controversy. ”

“ Under current conditions the only authentic standard must be based, not upon the social influence of the work, but upon its quality; and a standard of this kind, while it falls short of being complete, must always persist as one indispensable condition of final excellence. ”

“ You must find a fixed standard of some kind or other; for if there is no standard but the immediate momentary purpose of the day, guided and governed by the man who uses it, fixed not only for the disposition of all the wealth and strength of the state, but for the life, fortune, and property of every individual, your Lordships are left without a principle to direct your judgment. ”

“ The standard of what you say may be a shifting one, and anyhow, he cannot be at all sure what you will say unless he knows what is your standard, the standard by which you will decide whether to say, in any given case, that a thing is wrong or right. ”

“ If a common standard were known among men, and if the understandings of men determined in the same manner as to the conformity, or otherwise, of an action to that standard; what renders it a matter of obligation that any one should perform it? The rule must be proved to be binding, or no ground of obligation is established.
An action is obligatory, say others, because it is agreeable to the moral sense. ”

“ To this standard we must conform till the law is changed, and till some other commodity is discovered, by the use of which we shall obtain a more perfect standard, than that which we have established. ”

“ Those who have dispensed with the assumption of such a universal standard, have only been enabled to do so by supposing that a moral sense, or instinct, inherent in our constitution, informs us, both what principles of conduct we are bound to observe, and also in what order these should be subordinated to one another. ”

“ It is evident that an appeal to a fixed standard, and an admonitory application of its known rules to the existing practices of the people, completes the requisite data of the historical problem above-mentioned. In the standard we have a known quantity ”

“ In all the states of character we have mentioned, as in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man who has the rule looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly, and there is a standard which determines the mean states which we say are intermediate between excess and defect, being in accordance with the right rule. ”

“ And, passing from this to conscious life, we are called on still for further uses and fresh applications of our standard. In the will of the individual, or of the community, so far as adequately carried out and expressing itself in outward fact, we have a new claim to harmonious and self-included reality. And we have to consider in each case the consistency, together with the range and area, of the principle, and the degree up to which it has mastered and passed into existence. ”

“ Between these two highest grades, as between the two lower, we shall find a difference of value, extent, and difficulty; always supposing the standard to be the manner in which they affect Man’s well-being, collectively or individually. ”

“ As a matter of fact what has happened in every case like these is an actual change of standard, a new construction in the growing system of one's norms of value and behavior. Provisionally, though hopefully, a step has been taken—a real event in personal and in social history has been given place and date. From some source beyond the scope and nature of the earlier function a suggestion or an impulsion has come by which the agent has endeavored to move forward. ”

“ If it means taking note of all concrete relations involved, it is relative. The absoluteness, in fine, of the standard of action consists not in some rigid statement, but in never-failing application. Universality here, as elsewhere, resides not in a thing, but in a way, a method of action. The absolute standard is the one applicable to all deeds, and the conception of the exercise of function is thus absolute, covering all conduct from the mainly impulsive action of the savage to the most complex reaches of modern life. ”

“ I may of course be premature in this confidence, and the glory of being truth final and absolute may fall upon some later revision and correction of my scheme, which later will then be judged untrue in just the measure in which it departs from that finally satisfactory formulation. To admit, as we pragmatists do, that we are liable to correction (even tho we may not expect it) involves the use on our part of an ideal standard. ”

“ But before the crucial question of justice which divides modern society, namely, whether we shall lay emphasis upon adjustment of rewards to previous abilities, habits, possessions, character, or shall lay stress upon needs, and the possibility of bringing about a greater measure of equality, the doctrine which would find its standard in an a priori reason is helpless. ”

“ On the other hand, it is very desirable to know as nearly as we can the standard by which we shall be judged at a given moment, and, moreover, the standards for a very large part of human conduct do not vary from century to century. ”

“ It would represent a norm sufficiently narrow of limit to make understood what is said, and sufficiently broad to offer within justifiable bounds ample opportunity for the play of individual or territorial peculiarities. Its principal effect would be to set up a standard which would be ever before the eyes of men. ”

“ These philosophers say, that there is a right and a wrong, original, fundamental; and that things ought to be, or ought not to be, according as they do, or do not, conform to that standard. If asked, whence we derive a knowledge of this right and wrong in the abstract, which is the foundation and standard of what we call right and wrong in the concrete, they speak dogmatically, and convey no clear ideas. ”

“ We may intellectually set up a norm or standard, but it will be a norm or standard from which every individual is bound to vary.
The fact that individuals do differ, and in specific and definable respects, has most serious consequences for social life. ”

“ In consequence it becomes a necessity, if it be possible, to analyze the process of reasoning, and to invent a method which may act as a common measure between mind and mind, as a means of joint investigation, and as a recognized intellectual standard,—a standard such as to secure us against hopeless mistakes, and to emancipate us from the capricious ipse dixit of authority. ”

“ That a complete standard, to which all the polite and learned of a nation will conform, is, in its own nature, impracticable, may be satisfactorily proved from the structure of the human mind; from the various modes in which different men view the same subject ”

“ Ultimately, the question of values and a standard of values is the moral question of the organization of the interests of life. Educationally, the question concerns that organization of schools, materials, and methods which will operate to achieve breadth and richness of experience. ”

“ The primary question now discussed, as of the most vital importance, is, What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of human conduct and opinion, we may determine what is right and good in individual and social life? ”

“ "The existence of any method, standard, custom, or practice is no reason for its continuance when a better is offered." ”

“ The self of the full moral consciousness, however,—the only one which can claim acceptance or authority—is born only in the process of considering real conditions, of weighing and choosing between alternatives of action in a real world of nature and persons. Its judgments are more than subjective. Objectivism in its absolutist and abstract forms assumes a standard—nature, essence, law—independent of process. Such a standard is easily shown372 to be free from anything individual, private, or changing. ”

“ Does anyone know the meaning of individual standards and social concepts?
Individual standards are the standards that a person sets up for herself, and social concepts are the standards that have been passed down through the centuries. ”

“ And I would ask, in turn, if my old friend had studied history with reference to the principle that, as a rule, human beings do not rise above the standard implied in society’s general estimate of the class to which they belong. ”

“ If, however, the standard of living which one has inherited from his class is adopted as an individual standard, and is made the object of effort and self-denial, the individual and social results are of high value. ”

“ We get a picture not of any definite standard but of such a process as we have described in our analysis, namely, a process into which the existing social tradition, the mutual adjustments of a changing society and the intelligent consideration of all facts, enter. ”

“ Standards of weight and measure are thus the products of the people. The fundamental condition to be fulfilled is that a standard shall be definite and invariable. The function of legislation is not to create standards, but to adopt and protect them. ”

“ We are but the interpreters of existing standards and the formulators and expositors of ways that lead to the meeting of the exaction imposed by them. But if an uneasy thought sometimes, at dusk, buzzes into our incautious ear that the existing standards lead to unregenerate mediocrity, should we not pause and ask if perpetuating these standards is for the good of our souls or even for the work we love (and a [126] great many of us really do love our work!) ”

“ In either case we may consider our standards and values either as in some sense fixed or as in the making.68 We may suppose that good is objective and absolute, that right is discovered by a rational faculty, or we may consider that in regarding good as objective we have not made it independent of the valuing process and that in treating right as a standard we have not thereby made it a fixed concept to be discovered by the pure intellect. The position of this paper will be (1) that good while objective is yet objective as a value and not as an essence or physical fact ”

“ Considering this remissness in the operator, and shoeing too short at the heels, to constitute the prevalent and principal errors requiring rectification, it is anxiously to be hoped, that those whose minds are open to conviction, will contribute their assistance to inculcate the necessity of adopting one invariable standard as a leading step to general reformation. ”

“ It embodies the permanent attitude, the habit taken toward certain recurring difficulties or problems in experience. Ideas, or meanings fixed in terms, show the scheme of values which the community uses in appraising matters that need consideration and which are indeterminate or unassured. They are held up as standards for all its members to follow. ”

“ Naturally, the question of standards becomes one of grave importance, unless we are ready to accept the rule of the average, which more than offsets the rise of the lowest by the fall of the highest, with an ultimate tendency downward. ”

“ All relevant material must be marshaled and sorted and forthrightly examined. We must not only be precise as to the standards of judgment that we are utilizing, but exacting in examining the relevant material in light of those standards. ”