THE NATURE OF VALUE
Contents:
If you care to exist at all, you must act toward your own life in some way. A value is something that one acts to gain and/or keep for the sake of something, that something ultimately being one’s own life. Hence, understanding what values are and how they work is key to understanding how to exist to the fullest, i.e. how to survive and thrive.
NOTE: By its nature, the concretisation of value is and can only be in the moment, i.e. in the present, here and now.
A value is — in broad terms — that which one acts to gain and/or keep. But why must one act toward something for it to be his value? Could one not simply wish for it or want it without acting toward it? Here, we have to identify the purpose behind the concept of value. The distinction between a potential being pursued to be realised and a potential only being considered is that the former denotes active concretisation whereas the latter does not (the importance of this distinction is explained in the note below). This already shows why a value can only exist if it is being concretised in some form.
NOTE: Concretisation separates the causally ineffective results of consciousness from the causally effective results of consciousness in the present context; this is a distinction that underlies the effect of every result of consciousness. This is the distinction being made by differentiating the concept of value from a wish or a want. To be clear, a wish or a want is not nothing and has some effect (especially if as they may affect actions in a broader context); I am only speaking of the actual, i.e. presently concrete facts (to be extra clear, a wish or want does affect the consciousness in some way, of course, but by itself it does not affect reality apart from it).
To go even further, we observe that the source of value is the reality of life, reality as it is in the here and now. To elaborate, a value is — in essence — that which supports and sustains life. Now, life is — ultimately — a concrete, ongoing phenomenon. Hence, a value that is not being concretised is a contradiction in terms: it is that which supports and sustains life while not supporting and sustaining life in any concrete (i.e. actual) sense. In other words, it is simply not a value (at least not yet; it could be a potential value, just not an actual one). Keep in mind that a long-range value is still a value because it is being concretised; by acting to concretise it (even if it is not fully realised yet), you are supporting and sustaining your life as you live it through the process of the pursuit itself (which is necessarily valuable since values are integrated; this aspect of values shall be discussed in later sections).
NOTE 1: It is vital to note that reality is non-contradictory and causal, which means reality in the here and now is tied inextricably to the past and the potential. However, the actuality, i.e. the concrete present is the basis of reality from which the past and the potential draw meaning. In this context, consider the following quote that I essentially agree with:
“Why work for a long range goal except to expand, enhance and enrich your pleasure in life? And how can you ever experience pleasure except here and now? You must always live and try to enjoy today.” — Leonard Peikoff, “The Proper Role of Emotions” by Leonard Peikoff
To add to the above, note that the metaphysical source of value as well as the ultimate purpose of all values is the concrete affirmation of life, which means that to the extent your ignore it, to that extent you degrade and/or destroy your values as a whole.
NOTE 2: It is either-or: either you strive to concretise rational values to the fullest or you reject the value of your own life. A compromise — if one is possible at all — is necessarily temporary, a transition between the two states. However, if the “compromise” becomes permanent, it is essentially the rejection of the value of life.
NOTE 3: A value that you cannot yet pursue but to which you actually orient your mind toward in some way (e.g. by waiting for the right conditions, keeping an eye for opportunities, etc.) is still a value because you are still, in some form, acting to concretise it (by orienting yourself toward it to the fullest extent possible to you).
Values are a form of truth; they identify that which one acts to gain and/or keep with respect to an objective standard. In other words, a value identifies that which is necessary or helpful to one’s own life. Hence, like truth, values are non-contradictory, i.e. you cannot act against some value in a narrower context while maintaining that value or a generalisation of that value in a broader context, because by acting against the value in the narrower context you by implication — necessarily and inescapably — accept the value’s negation in a broader context, thereby excluding any generalisation of that value. For example, you cannot value human beings (given certain conditions) in general if you do not value particular human beings (given the same certain conditions) in a given particular situation. It is not merely a matter of hypocrisy, i.e. of saying, “You have no right to value A if you do not value B.” Instead, it is a matter of saying, “It is literally — necessarily and in fact — impossible for you and your mind to value A if you do not value B, no matter what you purport or desire.” I need more observations to concretise this, but this is the philosophical conclusion.
My position here mirrors what I said in my introductory essay on philosophy (see: “Why to pursue philosophy?” from Introduction to Philosophy from Philosophy), “Those who decry the need for broader generalisations and principles are ultimately helpless to the broader implications of their decisions.” The same applies — in essence — to values. What this means in more concrete terms can differ: a feeling of guilt, lack of motive or concern toward your alleged values, a tendency, inclination or drive to go against your alleged values, etc. Contradictions cannot and do not exist in reality, neither in truth nor in value (which is a form of truth); if you contradict a value in any way, either directly or by implication, you no longer hold that value unless and until you acknowledge and correct the contradiction (which can involve atonement). Furthermore, to ignore or evade such contradictions in any form is to ignore parts of reality, and since reality is interconnected, you are blinding yourself to reality on some level, evading the facts and making yourself helpless to them and — by extension, in the long-run — to reality as such. Lastly, by degrading or destroying your ability to internalise a value and make it a part of your self-driven value-judgement mechanism, you degrade or destroy your ability to pursue your life.
Hence, in essence and ultimately, hypocrisy destroys efficacy.
NOTE: Even if you try to pretend or forcefully value things whose value you have contradicted and left contradicted, you would rely not on an internalised, self-driven value-judgement mechanism (which is sustainable) but a willpower-based approach that constantly fights against the self-driven mechanism you have internalised already; willpower is not unlimited nor is it omnipotent, which means the latter approach is not sustainable and is bound to fail. Even if it does not fail in a narrower context, it is — by the brute-force nature of the approach — a drain on your efficacy in life as a whole, since your capacity to push yourself is limited, precious and does not replenish automatically nor unconditionally.
Just as in the case of correcting a contradiction in truth in general, correcting a contradiction in value requires the acceptance of the contradiction and the correction of its effects (in thought and action). The concrete course of action required can vary from just accepting and learning from your faults to seeking forgiveness, making amends or even atoning for your deeds. Guilt and regret can often be appropriate, and if they are, they are constructive since they instil in you the desire to learn from and correct your faults and the consequences of your ill-actions. Note that not feeling guilt or regret for something you know to be objectively wrong is not a good thing; you are not “spared” from the consequences of your actions. In fact, it indicates something worse, namely that your internal mechanism is not able to orient itself toward your values and thus toward your life, which means it is objectively deficient. Such deficiency is indicative of a degraded or destroyed sense of self-value and value for your own life.
To pursue values long-range is not and cannot be at the expense of values in the short-range. Likewise, the pursuit of values in the short-range cannot neglect values in the long-range. Why? Because the meaning of each and every value is derived from the context of life as a whole, which to a volitional being involves both the actual and the potential, and undermining the pursuit of life in any way undermines or even nullifies the pursuit of all values. No values exist in isolation of others and must be a part of an integrated, non-contradictory whole.
The standard of value, i.e. life, is conditional; its success is not guaranteed. By extension, that which is necessary for life to be sustained and to flourish — i.e. the achievement of values — is also conditional and not guaranteed. Evidently then, inherent in the capacity to pursue values is the capacity to fail in this pursuit and thereby suffer loss; the latter is a necessary, inseparable implication of the former.
Furthermore, the value one holds for life is not predicated primarily on a feeling or lack thereof (e.g. pleasure, lack of pain, etc.). Rather, the value one holds for life is predicated on one’s efficacy in life, i.e. one’s objective capacity to live, and thus, to pursue and achieve values. Happiness — the state of successful existence as a volitional being, i.e. the state of successful existence in terms of both the actual and the potential — is an objective condition that requires objectivity (i.e. adherence to the facts of reality) in thought and action. Lacking the capacity to feel loss — even grave loss — is not in favour of one’s life but severely against it; it represents a loss of objectivity in one’s internal value-seeking mechanism, which in turn represents a loss of efficacy in one’s capacity to live as a human (note that willpower is limited and cannot indefinitely compensate for deficiencies in one’s internal value-seeking mechanism).
To expand on the previous point, I posit that in some (and I do stress “some”) contexts, difficult or even painful emotions such as fear, sadness, grief, etc. are the most life-affirming emotions possible precisely because they are what affirm our grasp of our values in these contexts and thereby orient us to their pursuit. To see how, consider the example of grief over the loss of a loved one. Values by their nature exist as an integrated whole, which means the loss of value is a disintegration of your values in some way. The greater the value, the more of your values it is integrated to. Hence, to lose a loved one is to lose the integration of a vast range of values in your pursuit of life and happiness. If you do not recognise such a loss, you cannot act to accept it, adjust to it, reintegrate your values and orient yourself toward your life. Now, how can you recognise and thereby deal with such a loss? Since it is an aspect of consciousness, you can only grasp it by its effects on your consciousness and, by the nature of loss, it cannot be easy to bear or else you cannot know (especially in a concrete and practical sense) about the severity of its effects. Grief is an example of how we grasp such effects; there is no essential alternative to grief or painful emotions in general, since any alternative would necessarily be essentially equivalent in experience and thus approximately as hard to bear.
In short, loss cannot and should not be observed dispassionately and has to be experienced as it is, because not being able to experience loss is either a sign of a lack of values and thus a lack of orientation toward life, or a lack of the means to grasp a key part of reality, which in this case is the condition of your consciousness and your life-orientation. The pursuit of value as a whole needs not the “lack of loss” but objectivity, i.e. the capacity to experience things as they are and as they relate to your life and your values. If it is your life and thereby your happiness that you care about, then you have to accept — wholeheartedly — the capacity to suffer.
NOTE ON SUFFERING:
I want to stress that I do not regard suffering to be valuable in and of itself. It is not suffering but the overcoming of suffering that is valuable. Furthermore, while struggle is an important aspect of human existence, suffering is not, although it is a necessary possibility and often a reality. This is similar in essence to the fact that disease as such is not important to health, although some form of struggle is often important (e.g. exercise, hygiene, inoculation, treatment, etc.). After all, suffering as such is a form of loss, not a path to values, just as disease is a loss of health, not a means to get healthier. Of course, suffering is a fact of existence, just as disease is, and thus, it has value as a fact, i.e. as a source of knowledge about how to deal with reality. Other than that, by themselves, suffering and disease have no value.
Even when suffering leads to positive outcomes (e.g. a greater appreciation for certain values, a greater capacity for enduring certain kinds of hardship, etc.), the positive effects are not from suffering as such but from an increase in objectivity and efficacy; it is not suffering but struggle or orientation toward values that is the fundamental cause of the positive outcomes. To be sure, suffering is often a part of one’s experience of life and can form the basis of one’s struggle to pursue values; it is certainly valuable to learn to overcome it, and such knowledge often comes only by enduring it. However, my point is that one must seek not suffering but values; if suffering is experienced as a part of one’s pursuit of values, so be it, but by its nature, it is never essential to such a pursuit, and by itself, it goes against such a pursuit.
To put it concisely, it is not suffering but the pursuit of values that betters you; such a pursuit can involve struggle, but struggle as such does not need or imply suffering.
To add to this, note that my focus in philosophy and life is not suffering but happiness; I care not primarily to avoid the negatives but primarily to pursue the positives. In other words, I live not to avoid death or even pain and suffering but to live and live fully, with the greatest efficacy and enjoyment I can achieve.
NOTE ON THE DEFINITIONS:
Note that I define “struggle” as a kind of non-automatic pursuit of value. The fact that it is non-automatic means there can often be a form of resistance that must be overcome, leading to effort — possibly painful effort. Suffering, on the other hand, is a loss of values or frustration in the pursuit of values. The effort to overcome suffering is a struggle, but suffering as such does not necessarily involve struggle, just as struggle as such does not necessarily involve suffering.
ChatGPT on the distinction between suffering and struggle (I agree with it)…
Prompt: Talk about struggle vs. suffering as mentioned in the text.
NOTE 1: I have omitted the introductory part of the response.
NOTE 2: I wrote about my grasp of struggle vs. suffering after reading ChatGPT’s response. Nonetheless, my own text is based on my previous ideas about struggle vs. suffering in Guidelines for Values (check the subheading “The necessity & value of struggle”), and not based on ChatGPT’s response (which is good, to be sure).
By distinguishing between struggle and suffering, the text emphasises the importance of resilience, perseverance, and proactive engagement with adversity in the pursuit of a meaningful and fulfilling life. While struggle may be an inevitable aspect of human existence, it is portrayed as a necessary and potentially transformative experience that can lead to personal growth and the realisation of one’s values. In contrast, suffering is acknowledged as a challenging and often painful aspect of life, but one that can be overcome through courage, resilience, and a commitment to pursuing values and well-being.
ADDITIONAL POINT: Life is based on the achievement of time-bound needs, and thus, values are also time-bound.
This is a generalisation of the non-contradiction of values.
All values are ultimately one value. In other words, every value is the same one value — i.e. one’s own life — applied to the given context. For example, reason is the value for life applied to the context of cognition, a career is the value for life applied to one’s long-range efficacy through productivity, a relationship is the value for life applied to the context of value-exchange, etc. Hence, we arrive at an important conclusion: something can be a value in a given context if and only if it is the application of one’s value for life in the given context.
Note that an attempted application of one’s value for life is in fact an application of one’s value for life if and only if it is logical, i.e. non-contradictory with respect to the sum of one’s knowledge. If it is illogical, i.e. contradictory with respect to the given context and/or a broader context, then it is necessarily detached from the source of value that is life. In other words, it is not a value. Hence, it is not valid to say, “It is a value, but since the loss is too great, it is not worth pursuing it.” Logically, there can be no weighing of values against anti-values, there can only be value or lack thereof. In truth, either something is a value and worth pursuing in the given context, or it is not a value at all in the given context.
Expanding on of the above:
When something is a value, it is a value only in a certain context or range of contexts. To be a value out of context is to be a value in and of itself, without reference to any standard applied to the situation; this is a negation of the concept of value. This is key in understanding how to consider tempting yet harmful options or options that are bad for us in the bigger picture or longer range.
One fallacy is to consider this situation as one of “balancing values with negatives”. In this view, if a supposed value is in fact harmful or bad in the longer run, we would consider it as a value yet with the negatives outweighing this value; the pros outweighed by the cons, or the reward outweighed by the cost. Now, it must be noted that the root of this fallacy is in equating the concept of value (in the philosophical sense) with the concept of reward or gain.
In philosophical terms, a value is an element within an integrated system consisting of both other values as well as the context at hand. A value that (in your knowledge) causes you harm in the long-run is a contradiction in terms, since if you knew something was bad for you in a deeper sense that mattered to you, it would not be a value in your context. If your context is irrationally narrow (e.g. like an addict’s) or irrationally broad (e.g. like a neurotic’s), you would find values that would in a more rational context be complete non-values or even anti-values. The key is finding what is the right context (to the best of your knowledge) and evaluating the options contextually. Nothing is good or bad by itself, only in context and in relation to your standard of value.
This is a logical extension of what was said in “Integrity of values”
Since any value is only a value as a context-based application of one’s value for life, values are necessarily contextual (even if the context is one’s life as a whole). Hence, it is vital to consider the context before calling something a value. It is not valid to say, “It is a value, but in the given context we should not pursue it because it would be detrimental.” There are no out-of-context values, hence there are no such things as “values that must not be pursued in the given context”. If it must not be pursued, it is not a value, and where it must be pursued, there it becomes a value. Such conceptual clarity is vital since it preserves the meaning of value and helps keep in focus what the basis and source of value is.
The basic idea here is: the achievement of values is conditional, time-bound and a constant need in some form, i.e. there is not state of life and no point in life that does not require the pursuit and achievement of values in some form. For a volitional being in particular, the values to be pursued and achieved when conscious necessarily extend to values that sustain one’s self-motivated existence, which means conscious life-affirmation involves not only the automatic pursuit of values (e.g. breathing, digesting, etc.) but also the volitional pursuit of values, not only in the moment but also toward a future potential. Why? Because a volitional existence can only be sustained by integrating one’s present with some potential and by valuing consciousness to the fullest (which is not contradicted by actual unconsciousness, since sustaining the capacity of one’s consciousness to the fullest also requires rest, sleep and perhaps other acute needs, such as surgery, that may involve actual unconsciousness). In other words, to sustain our existence as volitional beings, we need to recognise and strive for some valuable potential (which could be as direct as enjoying the moment).
NOTE: Choosing not to pursue values at any given moment is to choose not to pursue a purpose at the given moment; here, no valid cognition is possible. More precisely, consistent rationality demands consistent value-orientation.
Hence, since (1) the capacity and fullest long-range exercise of consciousness is valuable to our existence, and since (2) the pursuit of value (with the standard of value being life) and thus the need for rationality is ever-present when conscious, even an occasional but deliberate violation of rational principles (e.g. indulging in non-essentials, arbitrary concerns, etc.) is a violation of our value for life as such, in some form. If the violation of rational principles is a habit or practice, then we devalue our life as a whole, serving ultimately to degrade and destroy it.
NOTE: In contemplative or reflective contexts, the purpose is to expand our thinking beyond regular considerations, which means in such contexts, what would be non-essential in other contexts may not be non-essential in these.
Let us touch upon “emotion” vs. “reason”. Emotion is based on our internal beliefs. But what are our internal beliefs based on? If they are arbitrary, i.e. irrational, our emotions will lead us to our ruin. If they are based on reason, however, our emotions will support our pursuit of values. A self-interested person will check his premises, make sure his core beliefs are in line with reality and correct them if they are not; doing so will lead to his emotions being in favour of a good life and not against it. Moreover, I reject any claim that we have no control over our core beliefs and I would reject it on three grounds: (1) my personal experience, (2) the fact that even severely neurotic people can learn to overcome their neuroses with the right steps and guidance (e.g. in psychotherapy) and (3) the fact that we humans have volition (i.e. free will) as a fundamental characteristic of our consciousness, which does not mean that we can choose to change our beliefs however we want, but rather that we can choose to focus on the facts and change our core beliefs over time, which does happen and has happened across the world and throughout history. And, by my personal experience, second-hand accounts and my understanding of the nature of emotion, I know that changing our core beliefs for the better also changes our emotions for the better. We are not doomed to an eternal wrestling match against our emotions in order to be virtuous, but rather, in time, our emotions will come to support our virtues. It is like programming a computer (the conscious mind being the programmer and the subconscious mind being the computer); it is not always easy, it needs the right kind of actions and can take a lot of focus, effort and time, but it is possible and of indispensable value to do so.