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Value Theory
In ethics and the social sciences, value theory involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy, it is also known as ethics or axiology. Traditionally, philosophical investigations in value theory have sought to understand the concept of " the good". Today, some work in value theory has trended more towards empirical sciences, recording what people do value and attempting to understand why they value it in the context of psychology, sociology, and economics. In ecological economics, value theory is separated into two types: donor-type value and receiver-type value. Ecological economists tend to believe that 'real wealth' needs an accrual-determined value as a measure of what things were needed to make an item or generate a service ( H. T. Odum, ''Environmental Accounting: Emergy and environmental decision-making'', 1996). In o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory. Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are: # Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined; # Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action; # Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborator, Friedrich Engels, the ultimate cause and moving power of historical events are to be found in the economic development of society and the social and political upheavals wrought by changes to the mode of production. Historical materialism provides a challenge to the view that historical processes have come to a close and that capitalism is the end of history. Although Marx never brought together a formal or comprehensive description of historical materialism in one published work, his key ideas are woven into a variety of works from the 1840s onward. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants. Enlightenment views of history Marx's view of history is shaped by his eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John McMurtry (academic)
John McMurtry was a University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, Canada. Most recently, he has focused his research on the value structure of economic theory and its consequences for global civil and environmental life. McMurtry was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) in June 2001 by his peers for his work regarding the study of humanities and social sciences. McMurtry's principal research project in Philosophy spanning over seven years has followed from the invitation by the Secretariat of UNESCO/Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS, Paris-Oxford) to construct, author and edit ''Philosophy and World Problems'' as a multi-volume study of world philosophy. Three sub-volumes entitled "Western Philosophy and the Life-Ground", "Modes of Reason", and "Philosophy, Human Nature and Society" have been written with internationally distinguished philosophers contributing to five topic areas in each of these general fields. The central tit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holmes Rolston III
Holmes Rolston III (born November 19, 1932) is a philosopher who is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University. He is best known for his contributions to environmental ethics and the relationship between science and religion. Among other honors, Rolston won the 2003 Templeton Prize, awarded by Prince Philip in Buckingham Palace. He gave the Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, 1997–1998. He also serves on the Advisory Council of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence). The Darwinian model is used to define the main thematic concepts in Rolston's philosophy and, in greater depth, the general trend of his thinking. Life His grandfather and father Holmes Rolston, and Holmes Rolston Jr (who did not use the Jr) were Presbyterian ministers. Rolston III was married on June 1, 1956 to Jane Irving Wilson, with whom he has a daughter and son. He holds a B.S. in physics and mathematics from Presbyterian-affiliated Davidson College (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book ''A Sand County Almanac'' (1949), which has been translated into fourteen languages and has sold more than two million copies. Leopold was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation. His ethics of nature and wildlife preservation had a profound impact on the environmental movement, with his ecocentric or holistic ethics regarding land. He emphasized biodiversity and ecology and was a founder of the science of wildlife management. Early life Rand Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa on January 11, 1887. His father, Carl Leopold, was a businessman who made walnut desks and was first cousin to his wife, Clara Starker. Charles Starker, father of Carl and uncle to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Ethics
In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resources." The main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism, physiocentrism (called ecocentrism as well), and theocentrism. Environmental ethics exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography. There are many ethical decisions that human beings make with respect to the environment. For example: *Should humans continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human consumption? *Why should humans continue to propagate its species, and life itself? *Should humans continue to make gasoline-powered vehicles? *What environmental obligations do humans need to keep for future generations? *Is it right for humans to know ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning on the European continent. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Ancient Greek philosophy and the Western and Middle Eastern philosophies descended from it. He has also shaped religion and spirituality. The so-called neoplatonism of his interpreter Plotinus greatly influenced both Christianity (through Church Fathers such as Augustine) and Islamic philosophy (through e.g. Al-Farabi). In modern times, Friedrich Nietzsche diagnosed Western culture as growing in the shadow of Plato (famously calling Christianity "Platonism for the masses"), while Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intrinsic And Extrinsic Properties (philosophy)
An intrinsic property is a property that an object or a thing has of itself, including its context. An extrinsic (or relational) property is a property that depends on a thing's relationship with other things. For example, mass is an intrinsic property of any physical object, whereas weight is an extrinsic property that varies depending on the strength of the gravitational field in which the respective object is placed. The question of intrinsicality and extrinsicality in empirically observable objects is a significant field of study in ontology, the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being. Criteria David Lewis offered a list of criteria that should condense the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties (numbers and italics added): # A sentence or statement or proposition that ascribes intrinsic properties to something is entirely ''about that thing''; whereas an ascription of extrinsic properties to something is not entirely abo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intrinsic Value (ethics)
In ethics, intrinsic value is a property of anything that is valuable on its own. Intrinsic value is in contrast to instrumental value (also known as extrinsic value), which is a property of anything that derives its value from a relation to another intrinsically valuable thing. Intrinsic value is always something that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", and is an intrinsic property. An object with intrinsic value may be regarded as an end, or in Kantian terminology, as an end-in-itself. The term "intrinsic value" is used in axiology, a branch of philosophy that studies value (including both ethics and aesthetics). All major normative ethical theories identify something as being intrinsically valuable. For instance, for a virtue ethicist, eudaimonia (human flourishing, sometimes translated as "happiness") has intrinsic value, whereas things that bring you happiness (such as having a family) may be merely instrumentally valuable. Similarly, consequentialists may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instrumental Value
In moral philosophy, instrumental and intrinsic value are the distinction between what is a ''means to an end'' and what is as an ''end in itself''. Things are deemed to have instrumental value if they help one achieve a particular end; intrinsic values, by contrast, are understood to be desirable in and of themselves. A tool or appliance, such as a hammer or washing machine, has instrumental value because it helps you pound in a nail or cleans your clothes. Happiness and pleasure are typically considered to have intrinsic value insofar as asking ''why'' someone would want them makes little sense: they are desirable for their own sake irrespective of their possible instrumental value. The classic names ''instrumental'' and ''intrinsic'' were coined by sociologist Max Weber, who spent years studying good meanings people assigned to their actions and beliefs. The ''Oxford Handbook of Value Theory'' provide three modern definitions of intrinsic and instrumental value: # They are "th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Objectivist
Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute"."About the Author" in Rand first expressed Objectivism in her fiction, most notably '' The Fountainhead'' (1943) and ''Atlas Shrugged'' (1957), and later in non-fiction essays and books. Leonard Peikoff, a professional philosopher and Rand's designated intellectual heir, later gave it a more formal structure. Peikoff characterizes Objectivism as a "closed system" insofar as its "fundamental principles" were set out by Rand and are not subject to change. However, he stated that "new implications, applications and integrations can always be discovered". Objectivism's main tenets are that reality exists independently of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postmodern Philosophy
Brian Duignan writes on the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' that Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical ideas regarding culture, identity, history, or language that were developed during the 18th-century Enlightenment. Postmodernist thinkers developed concepts like difference, repetition, trace, and hyperreality to subvert " grand narratives", univocity of being, and epistemic certainty. Postmodern philosophy questions the importance of power relationships, personalization, and discourse in the "construction" of truth and world views. Many postmodernists appear to deny that an objective reality exists, and appear to deny that there are objective moral values. Jean-François Lyotard defined philosophical postmodernism in '' The Postmodern Condition'', writing "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards meta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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