Vichara 2: What does it mean to ask what there should be?
If something is good or valuable for what it itself is, then...
Today's dispatch pertains to terminological matters. I introduce no new ideas here, and depending on your philosophical sophistication, it could be very basic. I'll be starting to get into the actual substance next time (though it will be the time-after-next that I'll really have started to get into it). If you get how terms such as these—the highest good, the Good, ultimate good, non-instrumental value, end-in-itself, intrinsic value, good/valuable for its own sake, good/valuable-in-itself—don't all mean the same thing but still kind of get at the same thing and won't be tripped up when I use them somewhat interchangeably in the future, you can skip this post. If the connotative difference between talking about "value" as opposed to "the good" is already intuitive to you, all the better. This prefaced, what I have today is also relatively short, so—and this is the only time I will ever say this—you do you.
What should there be? Like, what is the correct answer to that? Which is to ask, what should there be not because that's what I want there to be or because you like it, but because it is truly what should be?
That's kind of what we're here trying to figure out. I like that way of putting it especially, since it captures the pragmatic, action-oriented purpose of this project more so than asking "What is of value?" Of course, the latter is also normative, but the former question suggests that we should do something to realize that which is of value. Asking "What should there be?", more than any other question I've come to, helps sets ourselves up for civilizational praxis to attain that, or more precisely, helps set up ourselves to set up civilization such that it is geared toward that.
However, before we get into figuring that out, it would serve us well to have a good grasp on what we're talking about when we talk about what there should be, or what is of value, or what is good. It doesn't do to answer "What should there be?" by saying "the Good", or to answer "What is the Good?" by replying "That which is of value". This is all just semantics; I just replaced one term with another to convey the exact same thing. The question is still begged—what do I mean by that? Today's discussion will be somewhat dry, but having sound conceptual clarity is necessary to make sure that we don't fool ourselves into thinking we've gotten it when we haven't.
So let's start adding some clarity by emphasizing a connotation of the first formulation of the question. Apart from the reason I already gave for liking that framing, I find the question "What should there be?" to intuitively, even if not immediately, lend itself to the sense in which I mean it, viz., "What should there ultimately be?" That is, we are asking, not what is valuable instrumentally, or as a means to some higher end, but what is of value as an end-in-itself, or non-instrumentally—the highest good.
Here's what I mean by this: You may claim that your tires having proper air pressure is something that there should be. But to that, if I ask, why should that be, you may answer that should be so that your car runs more efficiently, economically or reliably, or so that your drive is more enjoyable. To that, I may again ask why you find that good or valuable, and you may answer, so that you can get to where you want to go more reliably or economically, or (for the latter response to the prior question) that having an enjoyable drive is something enjoyable. You may consider having enjoyable experiences to be in-itself or non-instrumentally valuable, or you may consider that useful for other states or goals you have that you consider non-instrumentally valuable. As for benefits of reliability or economy in getting where you want to go, you may say that is valuable for accomplishing what you want to accomplish or for holding down a job. There may be further reasons why you think those things are valuable. These may come down to your happiness, which you may value as an ultimate end, or for some other ultimate end—you may consider what you do at work or what you do at home (whichever direction you value commuting in more highly) to serve something that you consider having ultimate value, irreducible to your own happiness. Whatever your answer is at the end of the line of questioning, it is what, according to you or for you, there should ultimately be.
But should there be something that isn't just for you or according to you what there should be, but is objectively what there should be? Is there some attribute, substance or form that is simply good, whether or not you or I are around to think that it's good or feel its goodness? That is the question I ask here. It is somewhat of an offense against our given worldview to ask such a question. Of course, we are supposed to believe in modern liberal society, there isn't something objectively that there should be, in the sense of that's what has value not just for a given person—like, you considering X to be an ultimate end, I considering Y to be, etc.—but rather, some Z which is of value regardless of the specific person perceiving or experiencing it. Yet that is what I ask: What sort of thing(s) should there be in the world because they are themselves of value, and as such, are of value regardless of your or my opinion about them or experience of them? What is the criterion, or the definitive principle, form or substance of such things? That is, what is value in-itself?
There is a shorthand we can use for the ideas of "they are themselves of value" or "value in-itself": intrinsic value. If something is of intrinsic value, it would be so regardless of whether you or I think it is valuable or not, because its value lies in or of that thing itself. So we can see that what there should ultimately be is that which has intrinsic value: The only way something can be valuable not for something else, i.e., be valuable non-instrumentally, is if it is itself of value, i.e., if it has intrinsic value. (It goes the other way around too: If something is good or valuable for what it itself is, then there is no relevant question of what it is good for; thus it is also ultimately or non-instrumentally good.)
This relates to another articulation which captures the import of this inquiry quite well—that which should be for its own sake—a phrasing that captures something of both the intrinsicality and the ultimacy we're getting at.
So we have here a few possible terms for what we're asking about: "Ultimate value", "non-instrumental value", "end-in-itself", "objective value", intrinsic value", "that which is valuable for its own sake". All of these terms may be held synonymously with what is simply and all-encompassingly referred to as "the Good". However, I will, for the most part, avoid the latter term. I will explain why in the future, but I'll admit that it's mainly a matter of rhetoric; "good", even "the Good", seems to have a limited, moderated connotation, or a moral sense (which is to say, a limited connotation). As will become apparent as we go deeper, what we are concerned about isn't goodness, but something even better: greatness, excellence, glory, radiance.
With these conceptual specifications, we have enough clarity to move forward, at least tentatively, to explore what ultimate, intrinsic or objective value is (call it what you will).
This said, we should be warned that even as far as conceptual clarity of our question or variable goes, things aren't fully settled. We have just done the bare minimum. Many complications remain, and will be brought out to be allowed to tease us when it is necessary for us to be provoked by them. For one, though I have presented ultimate/non-instrumental, intrinsic and objective value as meaning the same thing, we haven't looked at the matter with enough rigor to conclude so with certainty. Especially knotty is the notion of objectivity, as we will see ahead.
There is also the distinction, which some observant readers may already have noted, between that which there should be, as in, those entities themselves that should be, and intrinsic or ultimate value, as an attribute or principle. Which one should there really be: The entities themselves, or intrinsic value in the abstract? There is an answer to that, and in due time, it will be given.
All these terms and framings aside, we will also, in due time, be coming to the general form of what there should be, what I simply call "the Ultimate". The Ultimate is different from what should ultimately be, or from intrinsic value, or any of those formulations.
A final point for today: There may a bias setting in already for some readers, especially insofar as the word "good" or the full-blown term "the Good" is used, that we are heading in a direction of clarifying ethical or moral value. If that is what you are expecting, you may be in for some shaking up in the coming dispatches; it would be best, if a word may be made to the would-be wise, to hold off for the time-being on projecting any kind of flavor or color upon value.