Existence exists?


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Since we've both read Objectivist Epistemology, I know that your response will be: justice is a concept found on other concepts which are ultimately founded on percepts. This is absolutely true. To take it further and address Adam's post, even imagination originates from observations of reality at some point in time according to OE. Concepts cannot be created in a vacuum. Everything that is valued implies a valuer. Therefore, according to OE, everything that can be valued must originate from observations of reality (i.e. perceptions through the senses).

However, I'd question whether choice is necessarily involved in values. According to Objectivist definition, values are based on actions and not judgments. Therefore, if someone acts automatically and unconsciously (without conscious choice), those actions at some level come to represent the values of that person.

Edited by Christopher
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GS:

Can "value" be objective [objective meaning independent of the human senses]?

Adam

How can a valuer value some valued thing without the use of senses?

Ba'al Chatzaf

I value justice, but justice is an abstract concept.

You must have experienced instances of justice, otherwise you would not have the concept.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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You're using a wide definition of the word "experience."

I'm going to quote Rand here on the concept of Justice from p.51 of OE:

** For instance: what fact of reality gave rise to the concept "justice"? The fact that man must draw conclusions about the things, people and events around him, i.e., must judge and evaluate them. Is his judgment automatically right? No. What causes his judgment to be wrong? The lack of sufficient evidence, or his evasion of the evidence, or his inclusion of considerations other than the facts of the case. How, then, is he to arrive at the right judgment? By basing it exclusively on the factual evidence and by considering all the relevant evidence available. But isn't this a description of "objectivity"? Yes, "objective judgment" is one of the wider categories to which the concept "justice" belongs. What distinguishes "justice" from other instances of objective judgment? When one evaluates the nature or actions of inanimate objects, the criterion of judgment is determined by the particular purpose for which one evaluates them. But how does one determine a criterion for evaluating the character and actions of men, in viewe of the fact that men possess the faculty of volition? What science can provide an objective criterion of evaluation in regard to volitional matters? Ethics. Now, do I need a concept to designate the act of judging a man's character and/or actions exclusively on the basis of all the factual evidence available, and of evaluating it by means of an objective moral criterion? Yes. That concept is "justice." **

Justice implicates observations of reality, but justice itself is not something one senses in the way you're talking about the senses. Justice requires reasoning and judgment, it is not a form of perceptual experience.

Chris

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Justice implicates observations of reality, but justice itself is not something one senses in the way you're talking about the senses. Justice requires reasoning and judgment, it is not a form of perceptual experience.

Chris

Quite so. More than perception is involved. There is abstraction and judgment as well. This raises the question of what is knowledge. It is not merely perception. More is involved in knowing what it is that is perceived. Because the perception has to be encompassed by a universal to make any sense. Hence - this perceived particular- is an instance of that universal category (or concept) so somehow the concept or universal must be available to identify the particular.

Plato raised this question in his dialogue -Theaetetus-. While Plato did not answer the question what is knowledge, he gave a pretty good proof that whatever knowledge is is more than perception or grasp of particulars. Plato says that knowledge requires that universals be grasped (comprehended). Plato was very, very smart. He ask many of the Good Questions long before Rand or any of us were born. Plato asked (placing the question in the mouth of Socrates) what is Justice. His famous dialogue -The Republic- is an attempt to answer this question. I do not think Plato succeeded, at least not to my satisfaction.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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The act of valuing requires a valuer. The valuer is always an individual (or a group of individuals agreeing on a certain subjective value or values), hence the choice can't be anything but subjective.

There exist no objective values "out there", only to be discovered.

When someone says "I value justice", "justice" is whatever the subjective valuer personally conceives as such.

Edited by Xray
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This raises the question of what is knowledge. It is not merely perception. More is involved in knowing what it is that is perceived. Because the perception has to be encompassed by a universal to make any sense. Hence - this perceived particular- is an instance of that universal category (or concept) so somehow the concept or universal must be available to identify the particular.

Yes, I think the best desdription of 'knowledge' is structure, and structure applies equally to verbal and non-verbal (perceptual) abstractions.

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