Value (ethics)

“ So that while utility does not explain why an act is right, it becomes, if correctly interpreted, a principle of great value in determining the right.
(2) It is unquestionably true that the altruistic principle of "the greatest good to the greatest number" presents a principle of genuine moral authority. It opens to view the whole realm of obligation to beneficent activity and self-sacrifice. It points to deeds that are noblest in life and highest in ethical character. ”

“ But, of course, as a matter of fact, none of them do exist quite alone, and hence it may quite consistently allow that, as it is, many of them do have very great value. Concerning kinds of value, other than intrinsic value, it does not profess to lay down any general rules at all. ”

“ There is no department of ethics more disputed than the meaning of abstract right and wrong, and as I am not talking either on philosophy or ethics I will ask you to accept just such commonsense definitions as can be applied to the business world and that may be usefully employed as a working basis. Commercial morality and honesty are determined by each community for itself in the light of its own special needs and point of evolution. ”

“ Yet truth and justice, in the history of morals, and, in the view of most moral thinkers to-day, are of value primarily because they tend to preserve the universe from destruction, and would never have become morally valuable had they had the other tendency! Legal values manifest this tendency even more—one needs only to point to our vast body of technical rules of procedure in criminal cases, which persist long after their original function is gone, and after they have become highly pernicious from the standpoint of the ends originally aimed at. ”

“ To this we may reply that the estimation of the relative worth of different kinds of experience is, indeed, often very difficult. But on any theory the decision as to the right is equally complicated and puzzling. The fact that the criterion is difficult to use is no evidence that it is not the right criterion. Which set of consequences will be of most intrinsic worth, it is sometimes impossible to know. But one set is, nevertheless, of more intrinsic worth, and the act that secures them is the best act, even though we do not recognize it as such. ”

“ The imposition of some recognized rules of conduct, safeguarding the security of life and property, is as necessary to the community as the existence of a coinage for the negotiation of commercial bargains; in fact it is more so. The two are analogous: the moral code must give effect to that first and universal principle of ethics expressed thus, "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you," which is only another way of saying, "You may expect others to treat you as you intend to treat them in similar circumstances." ”

“ But I do think that it is capable of the same proof that we have for many other moral truths that pass unquestioned. We must beware of applying to new propositions that corrosive logic which, if impartially exercised on old and new alike, would destroy the very basis of morality. ”

“ Out of the empty categorical imperative he seeks to draw a substantive entity—a being possessed of worth.
2. The society of ends per se described by him is not a true society, but a collection of atomic individuals juxtaposed. The capital flaw in his ethics is here. He begins by detaching the individual. He studies the individual, and discovers, or believes himself to have discovered, that something happens in him (the consciousness of absolute constraint) which entitles him to be considered worth while on his own account. ”

“ In particular, it has been widely held that if a free exchange of wealth and services is allowed, each individual will obtain from society, in money or other advantages, what his services are really worth. ”

“ The injustice of appreciating partially and exclusively the money of a minor order, or of any portion of society, is yet farther illustrated, by recollecting, that appreciation is necessarily attended by its correlative, depreciation; and that the effects of the one in moral geometry, are an exact mensuration of the effects of the other. Value is relative. If the money or property of one portion of the society, is made by law to be worthless, the money or property of those not thus oppressed. ”

“ True, he had a golden grip,--an almighty golden grip. He knew the odds. He was versed in cent per cent. He had a narrow wit and excellent judgment of the viler parts, whereby he transferred this man's money to his pockets, and that man's money, and the next man's. And the law smiled. In that it did not condemn, our Christian ethics approved. By social measure he was not a bad man. ”

“ It is to be particularly observed, further, that the obligation, thus perceived and then felt, is perceived and felt as due by the moral agent with respect to right and wrong. The ethical quality of rightness belongs to the act or principle of action. The motive, the intention, the conduct of men, is in itself morally right or wrong, good or evil. But the obligation appears as what is owed by the moral agent to what is right. The relation between right and obligation corresponds to that between right and duty. Right is in the conduct; duty is for the responsible person. ”

“ It has been forced to accept the standard of ethics in accordance with which great affairs are managed. Your merchants and manufacturers have their own code, by no means a low one, and their theory of right and wrong. Between these two classes come the men with lesser titles or no titles at all, families which spring from roots centuries deep in the soil of England, men of some wealth, but not of great riches. They have their own standard, their code, their peculiar touchstone for distinguishing fine conduct from its imitation, their ethic. ”

“ But this view absolutely ignored the social consequences which result from an unequal distribution of material things in a world where everybody absolutely depends for life and all its uses on their share of those things. That is to say, the old so-called ethics of property absolutely overlooked the whole ethical side of the subject--namely, its bearing on human relations. It is precisely this consideration which furnishes the whole basis of the modern ethics of property. ”

“ Who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another's life to save his own. ”

“ This true relation explains how it is that the right stands the very highest in the grade of values, without its becoming right by its profitableness. It is of supreme worth, the greatest good, but it is so by what it is in itself. ”

“ As to the stock argument, that people will pervert utility for their private ends, Mr. Mill challenges the production of any ethical creed where this may not happen. The fault is due, not to the origin of the rules, but to the complicated nature of human affairs, and the necessity of allowing a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to circumstances. And in cases of conflict, utility is a better guide than anything found in systems whose moral laws claim independent authority. ”

“ Along with duty, obligation, merit, innocence, or guilt, it may be affirmed of the moral agent. We may say, "he is right," in doing so or so. We may speak of the inner sentiment as right or wrong. So we may of the external action. For the true and full extent of moral quality, we must make it cover the agent himself, and both the inner and outer sides of his personal conduct. Conduct has an internal and an external part. The motive is only one part. An action is relatively right, with respect to the agent, when he has the right will in right motive ”

“ But on the other hand, economic values likewise derive part of their power from legal and moral values. The "social mind" is an organic whole, in which no factors exist "pure," and in which there is constant give and take. The effort to explain moral values by a single principle, as sympathy, legal values by another simple principle, as fear, and economic values by a different simple principle, as utility, is foredoomed. It has been given up by the students of law and morals, and should be abandoned by the students of economics. ”

“ Of things, whether natural products or products of human industry, as rock or star or stream, or ship or watch or engine, we cannot predicate moral character. We may speak of them as beautiful, useful, or perfect, or as ugly, useless, or faulty, but all distinctly ethical terms are inapplicable to them. ”

“ The truth is that, in spite of the sincerity with which it was held that the transactions of business must somehow be amenable to the moral law, the code of practical ethics, in which that claim was expressed, had been forged to meet the conditions of a very different environment from that of commercial England in the seventeenth century. ”

“ My leading doctrine is this: there are no moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. The origin of this interpretation itself lies beyond the pale of morality.
What is the meaning of the fact that we have [Pg 215] imagined a contradiction in existence? This is of paramount importance: behind all other valuations those moral valuations stand commandingly. Supposing they disappear, according to what standard shall we then measure? And then of what value would knowledge be, etc. ”

“ To supply a bad article was morally wrong, to demand excessive payment for goods or for labour was extortion, and the right or wrong of every transaction was easily understood.' [1] The application of ethics to economic transactions was rendered possible by the existence of one universally recognised code of morality, and the presence of one universally accepted moral teacher. 'In the thirteenth century, the ecclesiastical organisation gave a unity to the social structure throughout the whole of Western Europe ”

“ Its problems are problems of human nature and social relationships, its laws are psychological laws, particularly the laws of suggestion, [Pg 578] imitation, and the like, its tools are the newspaper, the sign-board, the whispered word, the cigar and the dinner with wine, sound logic, money and credit instruments, the prestiges of men and institutions. For men whose work lies in controlling and making values, rather than in making passive technical adjustments to existing values, the theory of value, as I have defined it, is of supreme importance. ”

“ Now, the idea of obligation, on which ethical science is founded, and the idea of gainful exchange, on which economical science is founded, are totally distinct ideas. The imperatives of ethical obligation rest upon the consciences of men, and Duty is to be done at all hazards; guilt is incurred if it be neglected; while pecuniary gains and losses, however large, do not, or at least ought not, weigh a feather against an intuition of Right and Wrong. Economics, on the other hand, does not aspire to place its feet upon this lofty ethical ground ”

“ Nevertheless, when we disentangle the three orders of ends, and consider each separately, it becomes clear that the conduct which achieves each kind of end is regarded as relatively good; and conduct which fails to achieve it is regarded as relatively bad. The goodness ascribed to a man of business, as such, is measured by the activity and ability with which he buys and sells to advantage, and may coexist with a hard treatment of dependents which is reprobated. The ethical judgments we pass on such self-regarding acts are ordinarily little emphasized ”

“ But the knowledge which experience gives of what is useful and conducive to enjoyment is generically different from the moral idea and its sense of obligation. Utility and the ethical discrimination are not the same conception. They belong to two diverse realms of thought and knowledge. Whatever relations may be traced between them, they cannot be identified or held as convertible percepts. The autonomous imperative of the ethical idea often positively prohibits the very things men judge to be profitable and pleasurable. ”

“ As a consequence, what is looked upon in one age as just and generous, may in another be considered thoroughly unfair. Concrete standards of justice vary with the time and are soon superseded by others. This is an important fact, and it must be mastered before one can use the current standard with honesty or intelligence. ”

“ If, then, we take as the principle of ideal justice, so far as this can be practically aimed at in human society, the requital of voluntary services in proportion to their worth, it remains to consider on what principle or principles the comparative worth of different services is to be rationally estimated. ”

“ In such case they might plausibly, as they often do, affirm that the moral bond, being thus organically insured and fixed in the moral consciousness, must remain the same, no matter what theories, even though purely materialistic, may be formed of its genesis and nature. But so soon as the ethical reality is seen in its cosmic place and transcendental character we want an explanation not only of the ground of obligation to right conduct, but also of the ground of the right which evokes the sense of obligation. ”

“ There is no doubt that we commonly assume such an estimate to be possible; for we continually speak of the ‘fair’ or ‘proper’ price of any kind of services as something generally known, and condemn the demand for more than this as extortionate. It may be said that the notion of Fairness or Equity which we ordinarily apply in such judgments is to be distinguished from that of Justice; Equity being in fact often contrasted with strict Justice, and conceived as capable of coming into collision with it. ”