Well, the culture war usage (on both sides) is a particularly harmful manifestation. But “values” is a folk-psychological notion that doesn’t correspond to anything in reality, and is actively misleading in understanding motivations.
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Replying to @Meaningness @danlistensto
Strange. I interpret having values to mean that you care about things, that you make judgments about what's desirable or not in general (not just as a personal experience). Seems obvious that people do that.
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Replying to @everytstudies
David Chapman Retweeted David Chapman
[Best expansion I’ve managed so far:]https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/969643349983375360 …
David Chapman added,
David Chapman @MeaningnessReplying to @robamacl @danlistenstoYes, my take is that “values” are used (1) to signal personal characteristics, particularly tribe; (2) to retrospectively justify action that did not meaningfully involve them at the time; (3) to construct a coherent (but mostly factually empty) self-narrative. cc@edelwax1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Meaningness
Should I take that as you meaning that we don't actually care about things, that the experience of caring is a construction of our internal PR-officer so to speak? I'm somewhat sympathetic to a version of that but not as a complete theory, I think.
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Replying to @everytstudies
No; rather, that the caring-about is not meaningfully summarized by “values.” It’s too fine-grained.
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Replying to @Meaningness @everytstudies
Might that depend on the degree of self-awareness of the person talking about their values? I tend to think most, but not all, people talking about their ‘values’ are deceiving themselves and posturing (without conscious intent, I assume), but some seem to get what they’re about.
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Replying to @delysis @everytstudies
Yes, I think that’s right. The construction of a systematic self (in Kegan’s sense) involves bringing activity increasingly in line with explicitly-held values.
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But the shift to stage 5 ethics consists of realizing first that these “values” are empty posturing (which can drop you in stage 4.5 ethical nihilism) and then finding a new ethical sensibility that recovers them as nebulous objects, rather than constitutive of the subject.
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Replying to @Meaningness @delysis
Does "values" imply a systematicity that isn't there?
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Replying to @everytstudies @delysis
That’s my take, yes. The ideal of stage 4 ethics is an axiomatic system in which the correct amount to tip a waiter can be logically derived from a handful of axioms (“values”), via a chain of increasingly specific theorems.
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Maybe the 3-part taxonomy here is relevant. “Values” comes in around 1.5 maybe. Mostly counterproductive to understanding, but sometimes helpful as a vague category when communicating in an everyday sense.https://meaningness.com/eggplant/remodeling#extinction …
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