IV.8         Ultimate Values Justified as Moral Rights A person who does not know what constitutes ultimate values--the highest goods or goals in life----cannot run his or her life intelligently. For whenever we decide on how to spend time and resources, we are acting on implied value judgments. Among ideas, value judgments determine our goals--the other ideas determine how we achieve them. It follows that a person's and society's ultimate values largely determine their actions, thus, their being.                                                                                    This writer                                                                                        A. Defining Value B. The Nature of Value Judgments C. Ultimate Values--Universal Freedom and Well-Being--Justified as Moral Rights D. The Means to Achieve Ultimate Values   A. Defining Value Value may be defined as the object, or objective, of any interest, desire, or need on the part of humans. They are usually things that are good, desirable, and important. Value in its origin, content, form, and function is biologically, genetically, psychologically, sociologically, and culturally conditioned. For instance, for some is to have while for others is to be an ultimate value. And for some there is an emphasis on life here and now while for others this life is a preparation for another future life.      Still another example of values are found in Ina Corinne Brown's essay What are people good for? in which she reveals her basic values. She claims: "One's beliefs are revealed not so much in words or in formal creeds as in the assumptions on which one habitually acts and in the basic values by which all choices are tested. The cornerstone of my own value system was laid in childhood by parents who believed that personal integrity came first. . . . The question was, "What will you think of yourself if you do this or fail to do that?" thus living up to one's own conception of oneself became a basic value and the question "What will people think?" took a subordinate place. A second basic value, in some ways an extension of the first, i owe to an old college professor. . . . Over and over he said to us: "The one thing that really matters is to be bigger than the things that can happen to you. Nothing that can happen to you is half so important as the way in which you meet it."       Gradually I realized that here was the basis of the only real security and peace of mind that a human being can have. . . . The acceptance of these two basic values led to a third. if what one is and how one meets life are of first importance one is not impressed by another's money, status or power, nor does one judge people by their race, color, or social position. this opens up a whole new world of relationships, for when friendships are based on qualities of mind and character one can have friends among old and young, rich and poor, famous and unknown, educated and unlettered, and among people of all races and nations Given these three basic values, a fourth became inevitable. It is one's duty and obligation to help create a social order in which persons are more important than things, ideas are more precious than gadgets, and in which individuals are judged on the basis of personal worth. Moreover, for this judgment to be fair human beings must have an opportunity for the fullest development of which they are capable. One is thus led to work for a world of freedom and justice through those social agencies and institutions which make it possible for people everywhere to realize their highest potentialities. . . . . when we protect the weak and helpless, when we honor the noble and cherish the good, when we cooperate with our fellow men to build a better world, our behavior is worthy of our status as human beings" (written ca. 1952, my emphases).   B.                         The Nature of Value Judgments All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.                                                 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)   . . . judgments of value are simply one sort of judgment of fact, distinguished from the rest by two characteristics; they concern consequences. These are consequences to the wants of sentient beings. Values, positive and negative, reside in the satisfaction or annoyance felt by animals, persons or deities. . . . Values are functions of preferences. . . . Competent students judge the existence of things by observation of them; they judge the value of things by observation of their consequences.                                           Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)    Value judgments are prior to empirical moral arguments because they provide necessary premises for it. They are propositions that state what is intrinsically valuable or ultimately worthwhile for its own sake and with the related concepts of instrumental, inherent, and contributive value. For example,      1. It is good to have a sound mind in a sound body (value judgment).      2. Exercise maintains a sound mind and a sound body (empirical observation).      ___________________________________________________________________      Conclusion: One should exercise.        Although value judgments are subjective, they do have inter-subjective properties, that is, properties on which the opinion of different subjects do or can coincide. This is possible because the individuals share a common nature and like environments that require the same value judgments in order to prosper.      Moreover, certain value  judgments may be backed by better reasons than alternative ones. Thus, together with an inductive leap, it brings subjective processes into agreement, and this is perhaps as good as being objective, that is, independent of subjectivity as well as the matter under consideration allows. This process, then, can yield moral axioms which state primary goals or ends. The ends, then, necessarily require the means which are secondary goals. Furthermore, Value judgments can be checked for reliability in at least six ways: First, they can be checked for effectiveness with need satisfaction. Second, they can be checked against experience. Third, they can be checked against the findings of the experts. Fourth, they can be checked for internal consistency. Fifth, they can be checked for their intrinsic benefits. Six, they can be checked for their overall contributive utility.     C.       Ultimate Values--Universal Freedom and Well-Being                                 Justified as Moral Rights  Argument: I claim a right to freedom and well-being as a moral right. This right is best described as a bundle of rights in the United Nations Global Human Rights Norms. I observe that historically, freedom and well-being has been most but insufficiently available in democracies. Theoretically and pragmatically, however, this right would be universally and adequately available in a Functional Democracy based on a Just Social Contract of, for, and by Educated Citizens. I want others to respect my right to freedom and well-being as an educated citizen in a functional democracy governed by a just social contract. I grant all others the same right, for only then may I reasonably expect that they respect my rights. ___________________________________________________________________ I conclude: It follows that I/we should be moral by respecting other peoples' rights--even if it goes against our self-interest--whenever it is in the interest of everyone alike that everyone should set aside his or her interest.      This argument strongly implies: The right to universal freedom and well-being is a foundational, ultimate value from which all other values or principles toward this supreme objective or value may be derived. The right to freedom and well-being in a functional democracy with a just social contract is a prerequisite to a person's moral autonomy and therefore a universal birthright. The basic need of the many to achieve this ultimate value trumps the right of the few to accumulate beyond need. It follows that luxuries and wealth for wealth's sake are abhorrently immoral in the face of poverty. That property is not a relation between a property owner and his property, but it is a relationship between property right holders (owners) and property right respecters who do not have to respect those property rights if they are undeserved or lead to unnecessary suffering.  The conclusion that that which furthers universal freedom and well-being is good, and that which impedes or opposes it is evil. D.                   The Means to Achieve Ultimate Values Other values such as "The Common Moral Decencies and Ethical Excellences," the "UN: Global Human Rights Norms" and the triad of "The Educated Citizen," "The Just Social Contract," and "Functional Democracy" are the means to achieve the end, the ultimate values of freedom and well-being. However, and just as in  the case of moral autonomy, see From Moral Insight to Autonomy, these ultimate values and their means are blocked by hordes of cooperating, powerful deceivers, ideologues, and sociopaths. These predators are all determined to protect their privileges. Crucially relevant for a full grasp of this crisis are the chapters of The Abysmal Antisocial.