E+c-7/14 = W,T,K

Q.E.D.

Response?

I think 'every being has value' is too broad. I think the original saying that you're referencing is 'every human being is an end in themselves', which is from Kant. If you believed every being was an end in itself, then you ought to move to India and become Jain. There's a particular sect of Jainism which is only allowed to eat fallen fruit. (They're usually very thin.)

Like Wayfarer says, for a being to have intrinsic value, it would have to be an end in itself. I think it's a very fine thing to treat others as if they were ends in themselves, but as to whether they are such ends, I think not.

What do you mean?

Well, perhaps "every being has value" is very broad. So, at least, does every human being have value? And, it seems that having value is different from "being an end in itself", which you say. I just feel that a being, or at least, we, must have some value, or otherwise these beings are worthless and ridiculous. I am anxious to find value for myself (in a philosophical sense, not about money, success or something else), or otherwise I will think I am ridiculous.

I agree, it is very important to understand that every human being has value. That is actually central to Christian ethics. The central idea of Christianity is that every person - actually, every soul - is precious to God. But similar ideas are found in other spiritual traditions also. For example, in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the aim of the practice of Buddhism is to lead all beings to Nirvāṇa.

I suppose from another perspective, we could recall that human beings are the outcome of a process of evolution and development that has been unfolding for billions of years. So it is quite ironic, and also sad, that at the end of this long process, there are so many who apparently have trouble feeling that human life is an amazing thing, even despite the many difficulties we undergo.

So, yes, I completely agree that finding value is of supreme importance. I think the key thing is, to find a source of value that doesn't rely on externals, or on other people, or on position or prestige. If you're able to do that, then that is something very significant.

1. Yes.
2. One does not prove it, one sees it.

Depends on what you mean by value. In most cases I would say yes everyone has value. In terms of value towards society I think that everyone would have either a net positive or negative value. I don't think it would be possible to prove the value of a person because there are too many variables that we are not aware of when it comes to our self. It is also dependant on what a person thinks is best for society so value is completely subjective. We would all need to be identical to come up with a universal defintion of value and nothing can be measured if it cannot be defined.

Value is "in the eye of the beholder," in the same sense that beauty is.

One sees it? How? Or, why do you think that every being or every human being have value? Even if there is not a proof, there should be some reason.

No, no reason, no proof, no method, no effort. It is so.



Of course, to be happy all the time, one needs to be happy to be unhappy.

If valuation mediates between subject and object then the proof that every being has value lies in the cognitive truth content of that mediation.

Where "value" is defined as a hat and "being" is defined as bald men, then no, not every being has value, but there are many bald men who would benefit from having a hat who don't have one.

A context without significant content and any content without a greater context is a demonstrable physical impossibility as well as conceptually impossible. A statistic of one is an oxymoron, yet, obviously statistics have value!

this thread amply illustrates the folly of seeking wisdom on the internet.

Madame la Fleurie
Wallace Stevens
"Weight him down, O side-stars, with the great weightings of the end.
Seal him there. He looked in a glass of the earth and thought he lived in it.
Now, he brings all that he saw into the earth, to the waiting parent.
His crisp knowledge is devoured by her, beneath a dew."

And yet it is reported that Stevens took communion on his death bed, perhaps
subsuming to Pascal wager.

So much for wisdom.