|
( Universal value)
Meta-ethics
Normative&_160;· Descriptive
Consequentialism
Deontology
Virtue ethics
Ethics of care
Good and evil&_160;· Morality Something is of universal value if it has the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people. This claim could mean two importantly different things. First, it could be that something has a universal value when everybody finds it valuable. This was Isaiah Berlin's understanding of the term. According to Berlin, "...universal values....are values that a great many human beings in the vast majority of places and situations, at almost all times, do in fact hold in common, whether consciously and explicitly or as expressed in their behaviour..."[1] Second, something could have universal value when all people have reason to believe it has value. Amartya Sen interprets the term in this way, pointing out that when Mahatma Gandhi argued that non-violence is a universal value, he was arguing that all people have reason to value non-violence, not that all people currently value non-violence.[2] Many different things have been claimed to be of universal value, for example, fertility,[3] pleasure,[4] and democracy.[5] The issue of whether anything is of universal value, and, if so, what that thing or those things are, is relevant to psychology, political science, and philosophy, among other fields. The principle areas of philosophy concerned with values are axiology and value theory, but values also play an important role in ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy. Universal value plays a different role in virtue ethics, deontological and teleological or consequentialist moral theories. Consequentialist theories are based on the idea that right actions are those that lead to a result that has universal value.[6] Some utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham for example, have argued that pleasure and pain are the only things that are of universal intrinsic value; that is, that pleasure and pain are the only things that are valued for themselves, and other things are of value only because they produce pleasure or pain. Because utilitarians are consequentialists, this means that utilitarians who hold pleasure and pain to be the only things of universal value then argue that actions are right when they maximise pleasure and minimise pain, when everyone is considered equally.
|
Universal value Subcategories
Universal value Articles
|
|
