Concept
Universal value
Overview
A value is a universal value if it has the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people. Spheres of human value encompass morality, aesthetic preference, traits, human endeavour, and social order. Whether universal values exist is an unproven conjecture of moral philosophy and cultural anthropology, though it is clear that certain values are found across a great diversity of human cultures, such as primary attributes of physical attractiveness (e.g. youthfulness, symmetry) whereas other attributes (e.g. slenderness) are subject to aesthetic relativism as governed by cultural norms. This objection is not limited to aesthetics. Relativism concerning morals is known as moral relativism, a philosophical stance opposed to the existence of universal moral values.
The claim for universal values can be understood in two different ways. 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 ..."Second, something can 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.
Many different things have been claimed to be of universal value, for example, fertility, pleasure, and democracy. 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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Values cannot be both ideal and given, and their “given” character is emphasized, not transformed, when they are called eternal and absolute. But natural values become ideal the moment their maintenance is dependent upon the intentional activities of an empirical agent.
John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thought
States what Universal value is.
Then he is made aware of other sorts of values involved in the act performed--values incompatible with just the value at which he aimed. He brings down upon himself social disapproval and reproach. He is termed rude, unmannerly, greedy, selfish. He acted in accordance with an unhesitatingly accepted idea of value. But while reaching one result he accomplished also certain other results which he did not intend…
John Dewey, Ethics
States what Universal value is.
And thus it is very easy to conclude that what seems to be a universal ethical principle is in fact an identical proposition; that, if, for example, whatever is called ‘good’ seems to be pleasant, the proposition ‘Pleasure is the good’ does not assert a connection between two different notions, but involves only one, that of pleasure, which is easily recognised as a distinct entity. But whoever will attentively…
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica
States what Universal value is.
Related ideas
- Hedonism
- Philosophy
- Creativity
- Isaiah Berlin
- Pleasure
- Authority
- Environmentalism
- Loyalty
- Autonomy
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Meaning of life
- Conformity
- Psychology
- Humility
- Political science
- Second Vatican Council
- Spirituality
- Tradition
- Honesty
- Empirical evidence
- Universalism
- Moral responsibility
- Social equality
- Beauty
Opposing perspectives
- Aesthetics
- Value theory
- Social order
- Value (ethics)
- Morality
- Cultural anthropology
- Ethics
- Physical attractiveness
Place in the tradition
Part of Morality.