"Let us suppose that the Genitor has sanctioned the appearance of a biological type called ‘human,’ into which, considerate as always, he has built an attribute, or complex of attributes, called rationality, perhaps on the grounds that rationality will greatly assist a human in coping speedily and resourcefully with survival problems posed by a wide range of environments, which a human would thus be in a position to enter and to maintain himself in." "But, perhaps unwittingly, The Genitor has thereby created a breed of a potential metaphysician." "And what the human does is (so to speak) to re-constitute himself." "A human do not alter the totality of attributes which each human possesses." "A human redistributes them." "A property which a human possesses essentially as a human becomes a property which, as substances of a new psychological type, called ‘person’ he possesses accidentally." "And the property or properties called Rationality, which attaches only accidentally to a human, attaches essentially to a person." "While each human is standardly coincident with a particular person (and is indeed, perhaps, identical with that person over a time), logic is insufficient to guarantee that there will not come a time when that human and that person are no longer identical, when one of them, perhaps, but not the other, has ceased to exist." "But though logic is insufficient, it may be that other theories will remedy the deficiency." "Why, otherwise than from a taste for mischief, the human (or person) should have wanted to bring off this feat of trans-substantiation?" "We need to provide metaphysical backing, drawn from the material which I have been presenting, for a reasonably un-impoverished theory of value." "I shall endeavour to produce an account which is fairly well-ordered, even though it may at the same time be one which bristles with unsolved problems and un-formulated supporting arguments." "What I have to offer will be close to, and I hope compatible with, though certainly not precisely the same as, the content of my third Carus Lecture." "Though it lends an ear to several other voices from our philosophical heritage, it may be thought of as being, in the main, a representation of the position of that unjustly neglected philosopher, Kantotle." "It involves six stages." "The details of the logic of value concepts and of their possible relativizations are unfortunately visible only through thick intellectual smog." "So I shall have to help myself to what, at the moment at least, I regard as two distinct dichotomies." "First, there is a dichotomy between value-concepts which are relativized to some focus of relativization and those which are not so relativized, which are absolute." "If we address ourselves to the concept being of value there are perhaps two possible primary foci of relativization; that of end or potential end, that for which something may be of value, as bicarbonate of soda may be of value for health (or my taking it of value for my health), or dumbbells may be of value (useful) for bulging the biceps; and that of beneficiary or potential beneficiary, the person (or other sort of item) to whom (or to which) something may be of value, as the possession of a type-writer is of value to some philosophers but not to me, since I do not type." "With regard to this dichotomy I am inclined to accept the following principles." "First, the presence in me of a concern for the focus of relativization is what is needed to give the value-concept a ‘bite’ on me, that is to say, to ensure that the application of the value concept to me does, or should, carry weight for me." "Only if I care for my aunt can I be expected to care about what is of value to her, such as her house and garden." "Second, the fact that a relativized value-concept, through a de facto or de jure concern on my part for the focus of relativization, engages me does not imply that the original relativization has been cancelled, or rendered absolute." "If my concern for your health stimulates in me a vivid awareness of the value to you of your medication, or the incumbency upon you to take your daily doses, that value and that incumbency are still relativized to your health." "Without a concern on your part for your health, such claims will leave you cold." "The second dichotomy, which should be carefully distinguished from the first, lies between those cases in which a value-concept, which may be either relativized or absolute, attaches originally, or directly, to a given bearer, and those in which the attachment is indirect and is the outcome of the presence of a transmitting relation which links the current bearer with an original bearer, with or without the aid of an intervening sequence of 'descendants.'" "In the case of the transmission of relativized value-concepts, the transmitting relation may be the same as, or may be different from, the relation which is embodied in the relativization." "The foregoing characterization would allow absolute value to attach originally or directly to promise-keeping or to my keeping a promise, and to attach indirectly or by transmission to my digging your garden for you, should that be something which I have promised to do." "It would also allow the relativized value-concept of value for health to attach directly to medical care and indirectly or by transmission to the payment of doctor's bills, an example in which the transmitting relation and the relativizing relation are one and the same." "Stage II of this metaphysical defence of the authenticity of the conception of value will involve a concession and a contention." "It will be conceded that if the only conception of value available to us were that of relativized value, the notion of finality would be in a certain sense dispensable." "And, further, that, if the notion of finality is denied authenticity, so must the notion of value be denied authenticity." "A certain region of ostensible finality, which is sufficient to provide for the admissibility of attributions of relativized value, is ‘mechanistically substitutable.’" "That is to say, by means of reliance on the resources of cybernetics and on the fact that the non-pursuit of certain goals such as survival and re-production is apt to bring to an end the supply of potential pursuers, some ostensibly final explanation is replaceable by, or re-interpretable as, an explanation of a sort congenial to a mechanist." "But, if the concept of value is to be authentic and not merely 'Pickwickian' in character, it is required that it be supported by a kind of finality which extends beyond this ‘overlap’ with ‘mechanistically substitutable’ finality." "Autonomous finality is demanded, and a mechanist cannot accommodate and must deny this kind of finality; and so he is committed to a denial of absolute value." "That metaphysical house-room be found for the notion of absolute value is a rational demand." "To say this is not directly to offer reason to believe in the acceptability of the notion of ‘absolute value,’ though it makes a move in that direction." "To say that metaphysical house-room be found for absolute value is a rational demand is, rather, to say that there is good reason for wanting it to be true that the notion of absolute value is acceptable." "There might be more than one kind of rational ground for this want or desire." "It might be that we feel a need to appeal to absolute value in order to justify some of our beliefs and attributes with regard to relativized value, to maintain (for example) that it is of absolute value that everyone should pursue, within certain limits, what he regards as being of value to himself." "Or again, it might be that, by Leibnizian standards for evaluating possible worlds, a world which contains absolute value, on the assumption that its regulation requires relatively simple principles, is richer and so better than a world which does not." "But granted that there is a rational demand for absolute value, one can then perhaps argue that within whatever limits are imposed by metaphysical constructions already made, we are free to rig our metaphysics in such a way as to legitimize the ‘conception’ of absolute value." "What it is proper to believe to be true may depend in part on what one would like to be true." "Perhaps part of the Kantian notion of positive freedom, a dignity which as a rational being a person enjoys, is the freedom not merely to play the metaphysical game but, within the limits of rationality, to fix its rules as well." "In any case, a trouble-free metaphysical story which will safe-guard the credentials of absolute value is to be accepted should it be possible to devise one." "I have some hopes that the methodology at work here might link up with my ideas about the quasi-practical character of metaphysical argument." "On the assumption that the operation of Metaphysical Transubstantiation has been appropriately carried through, a class of a biological creature has been ‘invented’ into a class of psychological substances, namely a ‘person,’ who possesses as part of his essential nature a certain metier or autonomous finality consisting in the exercise, or a certain sort of exercise, of rationality, and who has only to recognize and respect a certain law of his nature, in order to display in favourable circumstances the capacity to realize his metier." "The degree to which a person fulfils that metier will constitute him a good person (‘good’ qua person); and, while the reference to the substantial kind, ‘person,’ undoubtedly introduces a restriction or qualification, it is not clear (if it matters) that this restriction is a mode of relativization." "Once the concept of value-qua-member-of-a-kind has been set up for a class of substances, the way is opened for the appearance of transmitting relationships which will extend the application of value-in-a-kind to suitably qualified non-substantial aspects if members of a kind, such as an action of a person or a characteristic of a person." "While it cannot be assumed that a person will be the only original instance of value-in-a-kind, it seems plausible to suggest that whatever other original instances there may be will be far less fruitful sources of such extension, particularly if a prime mode of extension will be by the operation of Humeian Projection." "It seems plausible to suppose that a specially fruitful way of extending the range of absolute value might be an application or adaptation of the routine of Humean Projection, whereby such value is accorded, in Aristotelian style, to whatever would seem to possess such value in the eyes of a duly accredited judge." "And a duly accredited judge might be identifiable as a good person operating in conditions of freedom." "A cat, adorable as it may be, will be less productive a source of such extension than a person." "In the light of these reflections, and on the assumption that to reach the goal of securing the admissibility of the concept of absolute value we need a class of primary examples of an unqualified version of that concept, it would appear to be a rational procedure to allot to a person as a substantial type not just absolute value qua members of their kind, but absolute value tout court, that is to say unqualified absolute value. Such value could be attributed to the kind, in virtue of its potentialities, and to selected individual members of the kind, in virtue of their achievements."

 

"Let us suppose that the Genitor has sanctioned the appearance of a biological type called ‘human,’ into which, considerate as always, he has built an attribute, or complex of attributes, called rationality, perhaps on the grounds that rationality will greatly assist a human in coping speedily and resourcefully with survival problems posed by a wide range of environments, which a human would thus be in a position to enter and to maintain himself in."

"But, perhaps unwittingly, The Genitor has thereby created a breed of a potential metaphysician."

"And what the human does is (so to speak) to re-constitute himself."

"A human do not alter the totality of attributes which each human possesses."

"A human redistributes them."

"A property which a human possesses essentially as a human becomes a property which, as substances of a new psychological type, called ‘person’ he possesses accidentally."

"And the property or properties called Rationality, which attaches only accidentally to a human, attaches essentially to a person."

"While each human is standardly coincident with a particular person (and is indeed, perhaps, identical with that person over a time), logic is insufficient to guarantee that there will not come a time when that human and that person are no longer identical, when one of them, perhaps, but not the other, has ceased to exist."

"But though logic is insufficient, it may be that other theories will remedy the deficiency."

"Why, otherwise than from a taste for mischief, the human (or person) should have wanted to bring off this feat of trans-substantiation?"

"We need to provide metaphysical backing, drawn from the material which I have been presenting, for a reasonably un-impoverished theory of value."

"I shall endeavour to produce an account which is fairly well-ordered, even though it may at the same time be one which bristles with unsolved problems and un-formulated supporting arguments."

"What I have to offer will be close to, and I hope compatible with, though certainly not precisely the same as, the content of my third Carus Lecture."

"Though it lends an ear to several other voices from our philosophical heritage, it may be thought of as being, in the main, a representation of the position of that unjustly neglected philosopher, Kantotle."

"It involves six stages."

"The details of the logic of value concepts and of their possible relativizations are unfortunately visible only through thick intellectual smog."

"So I shall have to help myself to what, at the moment at least, I regard as two distinct dichotomies."

"First, there is a dichotomy between value-concepts which are relativized to some focus of relativization and those which are not so relativized, which are absolute."

"If we address ourselves to the concept being of value there are perhaps two possible primary foci of relativization; that of end or potential end, that for which something may be of value, as bicarbonate of soda may be of value for health (or my taking it of value for my health), or dumbbells may be of value (useful) for bulging the biceps; and that of beneficiary or potential beneficiary, the person (or other sort of item) to whom (or to which) something may be of value, as the possession of a type-writer is of value to some philosophers but not to me, since I do not type."

"With regard to this dichotomy I am inclined to accept the following principles."

"First, the presence in me of a concern for the focus of relativization is what is needed to give the value-concept a ‘bite’ on me, that is to say, to ensure that the application of the value concept to me does, or should, carry weight for me."

"Only if I care for my aunt can I be expected to care about what is of value to her, such as her house and garden."

"Second, the fact that a relativized value-concept, through a de facto or de jure concern on my part for the focus of relativization, engages me does not imply that the original relativization has been cancelled, or rendered absolute."

"If my concern for your health stimulates in me a vivid awareness of the value to you of your medication, or the incumbency upon you to take your daily doses, that value and that incumbency are still relativized to your health."

"Without a concern on your part for your health, such claims will leave you cold."

"The second dichotomy, which should be carefully distinguished from the first, lies between those cases in which a value-concept, which may be either relativized or absolute, attaches originally, or directly, to a given bearer, and those in which the attachment is indirect and is the outcome of the presence of a transmitting relation which links the current bearer with an original bearer, with or without the aid of an intervening sequence of 'descendants.'"

"In the case of the transmission of relativized value-concepts, the transmitting relation may be the same as, or may be different from, the relation which is embodied in the relativization."

"The foregoing characterization would allow absolute value to attach originally or directly to promise-keeping or to my keeping a promise, and to attach indirectly or by transmission to my digging your garden for you, should that be something which I have promised to do."

"It would also allow the relativized value-concept of value for health to attach directly to medical care and indirectly or by transmission to the payment of doctor's bills, an example in which the transmitting relation and the relativizing relation are one and the same."

"Stage II of this metaphysical defence of the authenticity of the conception of value will involve a concession and a contention."

"It will be conceded that if the only conception of value available to us were that of relativized value, the notion of finality would be in a certain sense dispensable."

"And, further, that, if the notion of finality is denied authenticity, so must the notion of value be denied authenticity."

"A certain region of ostensible finality, which is sufficient to provide for the admissibility of attributions of relativized value, is ‘mechanistically substitutable.’"

"That is to say, by means of reliance on the resources of cybernetics and on the fact that the non-pursuit of certain goals such as survival and re-production is apt to bring to an end the supply of potential pursuers, some ostensibly final explanation is replaceable by, or re-interpretable as, an explanation of a sort congenial to a mechanist."

"But, if the concept of value is to be authentic and not merely 'Pickwickian' in character, it is required that it be supported by a kind of finality which extends beyond this ‘overlap’ with ‘mechanistically substitutable’ finality."

"Autonomous finality is demanded, and a mechanist cannot accommodate and must deny this kind of finality; and so he is committed to a denial of absolute value."

"That metaphysical house-room be found for the notion of absolute value is a rational demand."

"To say this is not directly to offer reason to believe in the acceptability of the notion of ‘absolute value,’ though it makes a move in that direction."

"To say that metaphysical house-room be found for absolute value is a rational demand is, rather, to say that there is good reason for wanting it to be true that the notion of absolute value is acceptable."

"There might be more than one kind of rational ground for this want or desire."

"It might be that we feel a need to appeal to absolute value in order to justify some of our beliefs and attributes with regard to relativized value, to maintain (for example) that it is of absolute value that everyone should pursue, within certain limits, what he regards as being of value to himself."

"Or again, it might be that, by Leibnizian standards for evaluating possible worlds, a world which contains absolute value, on the assumption that its regulation requires relatively simple principles, is richer and so better than a world which does not."

"But granted that there is a rational demand for absolute value, one can then perhaps argue that within whatever limits are imposed by metaphysical constructions already made, we are free to rig our metaphysics in such a way as to legitimize the ‘conception’ of absolute value."

"What it is proper to believe to be true may depend in part on what one would like to be true."

"Perhaps part of the Kantian notion of positive freedom, a dignity which as a rational being a person enjoys, is the freedom not merely to play the metaphysical game but, within the limits of rationality, to fix its rules as well."

"In any case, a trouble-free metaphysical story which will safe-guard the credentials of absolute value is to be accepted should it be possible to devise one."

"I have some hopes that the methodology at work here might link up with my ideas about the quasi-practical character of metaphysical argument."

"On the assumption that the operation of Metaphysical Transubstantiation has been appropriately carried through, a class of a biological creature has been ‘invented’ into a class of psychological substances, namely a ‘person,’ who possesses as part of his essential nature a certain metier or autonomous finality consisting in the exercise, or a certain sort of exercise, of rationality, and who has only to recognize and respect a certain law of his nature, in order to display in favourable circumstances the capacity to realize his metier."

"The degree to which a person fulfils that metier will constitute him a good person (‘good’ qua person); and, while the reference to the substantial kind, ‘person,’ undoubtedly introduces a restriction or qualification, it is not clear (if it matters) that this restriction is a mode of relativization."

"Once the concept of value-qua-member-of-a-kind has been set up for a class of substances, the way is opened for the appearance of transmitting relationships which will extend the application of value-in-a-kind to suitably qualified non-substantial aspects if members of a kind, such as an action of a person or a characteristic of a person."

"While it cannot be assumed that a person will be the only original instance of value-in-a-kind, it seems plausible to suggest that whatever other original instances there may be will be far less fruitful sources of such extension, particularly if a prime mode of extension will be by the operation of Humeian Projection."

"It seems plausible to suppose that a specially fruitful way of extending the range of absolute value might be an application or adaptation of the routine of Humean Projection, whereby such value is accorded, in Aristotelian style, to whatever would seem to possess such value in the eyes of a duly accredited judge."

"And a duly accredited judge might be identifiable as a good person operating in conditions of freedom."

"A cat, adorable as it may be, will be less productive a source of such extension than a person."

"In the light of these reflections, and on the assumption that to reach the goal of securing the admissibility of the concept of absolute value we need a class of primary examples of an unqualified version of that concept, it would appear to be a rational procedure to allot to a person as a substantial type not just absolute value qua members of their kind, but absolute value tout court, that is to say unqualified absolute value.

Such value could be attributed to the kind, in virtue of its potentialities, and to selected individual members of the kind, in virtue of their achievements."